Racial Discrimination Claims At Maori Women’s Conference

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28250, 11 April 1957, Page 14

Racial Discrimination Claims At Maori Women’s Conference

Allegations of racial discrimination were made by delegates to the conference of the Maori Women’s Welfare League in Christchurch yesterday. Delegates supported a remit from the Aparima (Riverton) district council urging an inquiry into instances of racial discrimination in the Courts.

A recommendation has also been tabled for discussion of an explanation by the Minister of Maori Affairs (Mr E. B. E. Corbett) of alleged discrimination in the Waikato district, which has not been accepted by the Dominion executive of the council Man Apprehended

Mrs A. More, Riverton delegate, told the conference that a European had recently been apprehended prowling on her property. He was was reported to the police and she was asked if she wished to prefer charges. She made a statement to the police, she said, in which she outlined the alleged offence. Later the police told her that a local clergyman had said that the alleged offender was a regular church attender, a member of local organisations, and was thoroughly solid in character. “The police then dropped the entire thing,” said Mrs More. The alleged offence was considered by her and by people in her district as a serious one which had occurred many times. ‘‘Had this man been a Maori the case would not have been shelved. The Maori would have been brought before the Court and the news would have been headlined sensationally,” she said. It was considered by the conference that this was “another”, instance of a growing discrimination against Maori people. The remit was adopted unanimously. Waikato Case Dissatisfaction with a reply made by Mr Corbett was noted in the agenda for the conference. At the last Dominion conference in 1955 a resolution urging the Minister to investigate racial discrimination in the Waikato was replied to in letters dated October 10, 1955, as follows: “It is noted that this resolution refers specifically to an alleged case of discrimination on the part of the Huntly branch of the Bank of New Zealand. This matter was the subject of investigation and of discussion at a high level between the Department of Maori Affairs and the bank earlier this year. “It is said on behalf of the bank that, although strictly selective, it deals with Maori applicants on their merits, and that there is no rule debarring Maoris from employment with the bank. In Donald Hiki’s case the bank advised the manager at Huntly that it did not consider that his prospects in bank work would be good,” said the letter. Advising Sought Another letter from the Minister, dApd October 10, replied to a also passed at the last conference asking that Maori welfare officers be advised when a Maori is apprehended and about to undergo questioning by the police. Unless he could be satisfied that Maoris were under any disability which required protection he was not prepared to ask for privileges that Europeans did not enjoy, he replied. He preferred at that time to delay making a decision in the matter until he had read a report of the commission which investigated the alleged wrongful arrest of two Maori youths in Auckland.

He would have the resolution considered in the light of his

study of the report, said the Minister.

This reply was not accepted by the executive of the council and will also be discussed further at the conference. The Controller of the Maori Welfare Division (Mr C. M. Bennett) and the secretary of Maori Affairs, Mr T. T. Ropiha, attended the conference.

TEACHING OF MAORI IN SCHOOLS

The> teaching of Maori, as an experiment, in selected schools, is urged upon the Education Department in a remit passed last evening at the conference of the Maori Women’s Welfare League. With this remit, which called for teaching to begin from infant age, the conference supported the following resolution, passed by the anthropological section of the conference of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, in Dunedin in January:— “That the attention of the Education Department be drawn to the limited number of Maori primary schools controlled by the department in which the Maori language is taught, and that the Department be urged to take action to ensure a supply oi teachers trained to teach Maori as a subject in Maori schools and in schools with a substantial proportion of Maori pupils.” “When I went from the South Island to teach at Te Reinga,” said Mrs A. C. Noble-Campbell, of Wairoa, “I found that it was laid down in the prospectus that Maori was not to be spoken by the children in class or in the playground. And now they ask us why we can’t speak Maori—is it to be wondered at?”