ORAKEI

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 42, 19 February 1943, Page 2

ORAKEI

Our Government seeks to evict the Maoris from Orakei. If you are .a New Zealander who believes in the Atlantic Charter that statement should hit you like ice water would hit a drunk. I remember someone remarking that it spoiled our waterfront because they lived like pigs. That was a mean slander. I wonder how the slanderer would have lived had he been denied a sewage system, a water supply, electric light. A few years ago one resident was refused a permit for house repairs. But he was a simple Maori and couldn't see how it could do anyone any harm, so he went ahead with the job. Penalty, a month's imprisonment. One cleared some of the Crown land of weeds and planted potatoes. Penalty, £10 and costs. But the Government was right. To quote from a great American novel: "A crop raised—why that makes ownership. Land hoed and the carrots eaten —a man might fight for land he's taken food from. Get him off quick! He'll think he owns it. Look how they live. Think any of us folks'd live like that?" Yet "us folks" will have to live just like that if the Japanese take our homes. - A. MALCOLM.