MAORI PROGRESS IN NORTH

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26122, 26 May 1950, Page 9

MAORI PROGRESS IN NORTH

OBSERVATIONS FROM FIELD TRIP

“.I was very much surprised at the extent to which Maori adaptation has progressed in the town of Rotorua,” said Professor I. L. G. Sutherland, Professor of Philosophy at Canterbury University College, in an interview yesterday. Professor Sutherland has just returned from a field trip among the Maori people of the Taupo, Rotorua and Waikato districts, “Thirty-six per cent, of the pupils of the high school in Rotorua are Maoris, and in the town all but a very few positions are open to them when they leave school,” Professor Sutherland said. “Maoris are doing well in shops, offices, trades, and Government departments. I was interested to see Maoris in the majority in the telephone exchange. The new houses being built for them in Rotorua under the auspices of the Department of Maori Affairs are up to the standard of State houses, and are being well kept. While problems enough remain for the Maori people,* the developments that have taken place in Rotorua show the shape of things to come; though difficulties of adaptation are in general greater in most other districts.”

Another interesting development was in connexion with the timber industry, said Professor Sutherland. Maoris owned large reserves of native timber in the Taupo-Taumarunui area, and whereas they used to jlease the rights to European companies, for the last four years they had been successfully working the timber themselves in incorporated groups. One group aS well as logging was milling. This was a significant development, as Maoris had made very few excursions into commerce. “Every few minutes on the roads in this district one passes a long timber lorry bearing an enormous totara, rimu, or matai log,” Professor Sutherland said. “In many ways Maoris have a better background for timber work than for farming, though they have taken to the latter very well. Drinking Problem “Excessive drinking among Maoris is a cause of some concern, and this must be met not only in the negative measures taken by the wardens appointed under the recent Maori Social and Economic Advancement Act, but by building more and varied interests into the lives of Maori young people,” continued Professor Sutherland. “Maoris are, of course, far from being the only native minority that drinks too much. It is a symptom of maladjustment. The adult education movement has at last reached the Maori people, and it can help here. “Incidentally,” said Professor Suth- i erland, “I was interested to find an; adult education class in one Waikato centre in which grown up Maoris were learning to read and write. This is very different from the situation in Rotorua. For historical reasons the Waikatos refused to send their children to school, or to co-operate with the government in any way. The ehange has boon due to the enlightened attitude of Te Puea Herangi, the Waikato chieftainess whom I was glad to find still active in the interests of her people. She. and other Maoris of the older generation, are this year greatly interested in celebrating the six hundredth anniversary of the reputed date of the arrival of the main Maori migration in this country.” Professor Sutherland said that Te Puea had shown him the great, store of potatoes and kumaras and the acre of green vegetables to feed the visitors’ to a great meeting to be held at Ngaruawahia in October.