MAORI PAS

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 March 1937, Page 12

MAORI PAS

NORTH AUCKLAND CONDITIONS.

[PEB PBESS ASSOCIATION.]

AUCKLAND, March 1.

Disgraceful conditions in many Maori settlements in North Auckland w'ere reported 1 at a meeting of representatives of various groups of social and religious workers among the Maoris. The meeting was convened by the Auckland Council of Temperance Education. Drinking was rife, large quantities of liquor being brought into the pas and drunk at tangis and on other social occasions, the reports stated. In some districts' degeneration and immorality were assuming grave proportions. Several speakers stated that since' the Department of Maori Hygiene had been removed from Auckland in 1927, proper supervision of, Maori settlements had ceased to exist. The department finally had been discontinued and conditions in Maori settlements had been allowed to drift into the unsatisfactory state that now existed. In some districts there were' still Maori councils but almost everywhere they had ceased to function. Other speakers advocated the' extension of the native educational system to include adult education in association with Maori schools and the provision of suitable playing areas, such as tennis courts, to encourage healthy recreation.

It was decided to ask the Government to extend the system of education .for Maoris by providing training in agriculture, manual work, domestic science, hygiene, and native cultural pursuits, and to provide playing areas for Maori youths. The meeting also decided to bring under the notice of the Government the unsatisfactory way in which wage and suistenance payments provided by the Government were mis-spent on liquor and in other ways and to ask that there should be introduced, a system to prevent this waste.

A deputation of representatives of the various groups interested in the welfare of the Maoris will wait on the Minister for Native. Affairs, Hon. M. J. Savage, requesting that the Department of Maori Hygiene should be re-established as a separate department and that Maori councils and village committees should be appointed under efficient supervision.