RELIEF FOR MAORIS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 8, 9 July 1931, Page 14

RELIEF FOR MAORIS

UNEMPLOYED PROBLEM

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE

Details of the relief given, to unemployed Natives under the Unemployment Board's £10,000 grant were furnished to the Houso of Representatives early this morning by the Minister of Native Affairs (the Hon. Sir Apirana Ngata).

Tho Minister said that arrangements were made for hipi to deal with the problem of tho out-of-work Maoris through laud development up till tho end of September, and up till yesterday subsidies granted totalled £.8683. In order to make that subsidy available it was necessary to provide contracts and for private owners of laud to provide works on their property at a total ostimated cost of £27,767. In other words, for tho subsidy of nearly £9000 it had been necessary to provide a capital expenditure, which did not refer to fertilisers, seeds, or stock, amounting to approximately £28,000. Some 970 men were employed, at an average rate of subsidy per head of under £9. Thus provision was mado to tide unemployed Natives and their families over until the end of September, which he thought would overcome the worst" period •of the year. After that it was hoped there would be less strain on the funds of tho Unemployment Board. Sir Apirana said that as a result of the work 5809 acres of bush had been felled, 18,467 acres of scrub cut, .5119 acres cleared of blackberry, gorse, rushes, briars, and stumped and grubbed, 2450 acres ploughed and disced, 300 acres topdresscd, 823 chains drained, 402 chains of road formed, 41,000 posts split, 300 strainers made, 67,000 batons made, 3665 chains of fencing erected. The Minister said ho had not favoured the subsidising of •works of a maintenance character. There was still £1300 to distribute, and when that was disposed of ho hoped 2100 Maoris would have been assisted. The trouble was that that was not enough, and ho was trying to keep tho JNatives off tho fund altogether. Sir Apirana said that probably another £100,000 would have to be provided to make the land development work undertaken effective. In considering land settlement members did not always contemplate the heavier expense entailed in order to make settlement productive. The mere cloaring of thp land did not have that effect. The most expensive method of helping the unemployed was through land development, but it .was tho most desirjable. "A NOBLE UTTERANCE." The Prime Minister on his return from England had made the statement: "No work,' no pay." That, in Sir Apirana's opinion, was a noble utterance. It was magnificent. Mr. P. Fraser (Labour, Wellington Central): "It was magnificent nonpense." Sir Apirana: Tho day may come when Now Zealand may have to confront an'emergency so great and insistent that policies will have to go by the board and wo will have to get right down to the actual physical fact of feeding and clothing our people in ordor.to tide them over a very difficult period. The Minister said that in such a contingency the needs of the Native would be less than those of the European, because of the simpler nature of their mode of living.