PLEA FOR THE MAORI.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 214, 11 September 1939, Page 3

PLEA FOR THE MAORI.

CO-OPERATION ADVOCATED

PROFESSOR BELS HAW'S VIEWS.

A plea for greater consideration for the Maori race was made by Professor H. Belshaw in an address at the Strand Theatre last evening under the auspices of the Auckland Rationalist Association. Professor Bcl-diaw said that the present position of the Maori was serious. People were inclined to be indifferent to the problems confronting the Maoris, but they should remember that their problems were involved with their own. They heard a lot of the landless European, but nothing of flu. landless Maori. Sir Apirana Xgata's collective land scheme had achieved a good deal, but there was much to lie done yet. In many instances the Maori bad proved himself as competent a farmer as the pakcha. but it was absurd to expect him to have the same capacity for technique as thp European.

\\ p should endeavour." said Professor Belshaw. "to make the native independent by encouraging him to take up vocational training and education. The trades are open to him, and Maori girls should lie encouraged to take up the study of higher education and domestic work." The speaker added that housing conditions for the Maori in many instances were bad. It, was their duty to co-operate with the Maori and help him to adjust himself to European conditions.. while allowing him to retain native traditions that might prove beneficial. Although a large number of Maoris were absorbed in unskilled labour, this was not a permanent solution.