WILKIN FAMILY

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 152, 24 March 1938, Page 12

WILKIN FAMILY

Mother And Children From Doubtless Bay RECEIVED BY MINISTERS As strange a delegation as ever trod those precincts, an elderly woman and her 10 barefooted children, with a shaggy dog and a small caged quail, yesterday marched up the steps of Parliament Buildings and laid before the .Minister of Education and the Minister of Railways a story of hardship and inter-racial hatred on the lonely shores of Doubtless Bay, in the extreme north of New Zealand.

They were the Wilkin family from Wbatuwhiwhi, reported in yesterday’s "Dominion” to have walked 160 miles from their home to Whangarei, whence the mayor, Mr. W. Jones, dispatched them by train to Auckland. They arrived at 'Wellington yesterday morning by train, the eldest girl. Joan, having paid their fares, amounting to about £2O. Five girls and five boys, aged between 12 and 23, they appeared shy and wholly unused to the bustle of big cities or the excitement of travel. The younger ones’ education was such as they had received from their mother and their sister Joan, and they had less knowledge of everyday things than of the ways of the wild creatures and rare birds of their back-country home. Breakfast at Bellamy’s.

They had had no breakfast. The only Minister then at the House, the Hon. 1). G. Sullivan, saw to it that they received a square meal at Bellamy’s. Afterward he and the Hou. P. Fraser interviewed them and displayed solicitude for their welfare. They were handed over to the Smith Family, who provided them with coats and a change of garments, and arranged for them to obtain meals at the Salvation Army Hostel. In the afternoon they were given a bus ride round Wellington, and in the evening they embarked on the Rangatira for Lyttelton, still a little dazed, but grateful for the hospitality extended to them.

This was their story: In 1926, arriving from Queensland, they purchased 947 acres of freehold in the far north. They spent about £4OOO on the property. The only means of access was by water, or by a cattle track across the lands of the Maoris, who were their only neighbours. In 1035 their boat was taken in settlement of a debt, and thereafter it was necessary to tramp 20 miles to Maunganui for stores. Trouble With Maoris. The land was apparently ancient tribal territory, granted to a European settler some 90 years ago. The Maoris, Mrs. Wilkin said, were hostile to the family, and the children were greatly afraid of them. The Maoris, after a dispute with her husband, withdrew permission to cross their land. Thus they were completely cut off from civilisation. Recently the trouble came to a head when Mr. Wilkin and two children were charged in the Magistrates’ Court, Maunganui, with damaging a Maori wharc, and Mr. Wilkin was sentenced to two months' imprisonment. Left alone among the Maoris, they lived in fear. The Maoris came round 30 and 40 strong, and so intimidated the children that they were reduced to extreme nervousness. They decided to abandon their home; they shot their three dogs, left their 16 cattle and their 600 fruit trees, and under cover of darkness set out through the gorse and scrub across the Maori lands to the highway. It took them a week to reach Whangarei, camping by night at the roadside, and carrying the unaccustomed shoes, which they found too uncomfortable to wear. When they arrive in Christchurch the family will be cared for by the authorities. That is their home town, and Mrs. Wilkin has relatives there. They hope that the Government will make them a grant of land in place of that from which they claim to have been driven. DUTY OF CITIZENS TO STATE Minister’s Statement Of Position The attention of the Minister of Lands. Hon. F. Langstone, was drawn to the plight of the Wilkin family. "TlieState definitely has a duty to its citizens,” said Mr. Langstone, "but a citizen also has a duty to the State, and this duty is to avoid creating difficulties by his own actions, and then expecting the State to provide means of solution of those difficulties.” "This is a ease very much in point. Mr. Wilkin in 1926 bought this poor, isolated tract of country knowing full well that it had water access only, that its only neighbours were Natives, and that the rearing of a family of 10 children in such conditions was not going to be a very simple or comfortable task.'Nevertheless, for some considerable time Mr. Wilkin has been asking the Government to take over his farm and provide in exchange a more suitable one on which he could make a living, or, alternatively, that the Government should provide him with proper road access. However, the land is not worth anything like the cost of providing road access, and, so far as the exchange is concerned, there is no moral obligation on the State to accept a worthless property in exchange for a good one, particularly in view of the fact that the owner of the poor property bought it with his eyes open. “I do not wish it to be inferred that the State is not"sympathetic toward this family or that no as-istance has been provided in the past. Actually, all the monetary assistance asked has been given from the Employment Promotion Fund, while the Lands Department, the Native Department and the Department of Public Health have all been very much interested in trying to help these people. It bad practically been arranged to provide access for them through Native hinds adjoining their farm, but the M dkin family quarrelled with the Native neighbours and. naturally, the Natives withdrew the permit granting a roadway over their land to give access to the M ilkin property. "From my point of view, said JU. Langstone, in conclusion, “it is a pity that this family remained at Doubtless Bay so long, as I am certain that it is not conducive to the well-being of Mr. and Mrs. Wilkin or the members ot tbeirfamily, whose general education and progress' must have been retarded through living in this isolated state."