The Maori House

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23361, 21 June 1941, Page 8

The Maori House

A month ago the newly elected Mayor of Christchurch, in an interview, indicated that varibua questions of policy would have to be reconsidered by the Christchurch City Council. Among them he mentioned the gift of the Maori House from \the Centennial Exhibition, Which it would cost many thousands of pounds i tO rebuild under the sort of permanent shelter ; proposed. “ There will not be any £ 10,000 spent on the Maori House, ”v the Mayor said, and added that, while he himself thought the house; could be rebuilt and adequately protected funder a shingte roof “at a fairly small " cost,” there a ©eye to rescind the.

acceptance of the gift. He rightly recognised that “ considerable feeling ” had been roused against the proposal; but it should not be forgotten that the very heavy estimates of the cost only strengthened objections on other grounds. In the first place, nobody who supported the proposal was ever able to say clearly by whom and for what appropriate purposes, in Christchurch, the Maori House would be used; and it seemed desirable that the house should be rebuilt in some Maori community, where it could become a centre of qative life, and not here, where it would either stand idle or come into quite inappropriate use as one more public hall. Second, not one site proposed could be regarded as suitable; and the site which seemed most likely to, be adopted by the council, the Carlton Bridge corner of Hagley Park, would be willingly surrendered only by reckless enthusiasts for “amenities” at any price. The question, therefore, is not whether a less extravagant cost would make the gift acceptable but whether it is acceptable on any terms 'at all. The Mayor should lose ho time in reopening it before the council. The longer the resolution of acceptance stands on the minute book, the harder it will be to rescind it.