COLOUR BAR

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 245, 16 October 1944, Page 6

COLOUR BAR

ATTITUDE TO MAORIS

COMPARISON WITH ENGLAND

"The colour bar is more obvious in New Zealand than in England," said. Major K. T. Harawira, when speaking on the Maori Battalion at to-day's Rotary Club luncheon. He added that in his civilian capacity as a vocational guidance officer he had observed more alarming signs of a colour bar at the present time than after the last war, in which he also served.

Particular mention was made by Major Harawira of the hospitable treatment the Maori Battalion had received from the English upper class. The men had been taken into homes and treated as members of the family. As the Maori was treated in England, he said, so had he elevated himself to the standard of treatment meted out to him. If the Maori in New Zealand was treated on a higher level than he was at present it was certain that he would rise to the occasion.

Major Harawira mentioned the battalion's stay in Capetown, where the colour bar was so obvious that the men were not given the freedom of other troops. In England there was an utter absence of that sort of thing.

He instanced the difficulties some Maoris had in obtaining board in Auckland. He himself had had the door slammed in his face at one boarding house, even though he had been in uniform at the time. A young woman, a university student with high qualifications, was turned away on making application for a room, on the grounds that she was a Maori. She said to the woman who had turned her away. "Is that what my brother died for?" She had just received word of her brother's death while serving with the Maori Battalion.

There were other instances of this type of treatment, said Major Harawira. He had found it most difficult to place young Maoris in the jobs for which they were most qualified.