UNEMPLOYMENT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 19 July 1929, Page 4

UNEMPLOYMENT.

TTIE MAORI HARD PRESSED. HOW HE .MANAGED. (By Telegraph—Special to" the Star.) WELLINGTON, July IS. That the natives of the North" Island in particular have been one of the most hard pressed sections of the community through lack of employment, was the statement made to the House of Representatives by Sir Apirana Xgata, Native Minister, t-o-day. His account of how the Maori met the crisis was particularly interesting, thought it did not command itself to members for application to the European. “The rough work of the country is finished,” declared Sir Apirana, “the pioneering is done. During 'the time it was in pi ogress the man who was most in the picture, but no't in the Press, was the Maori, who did busbwacking, swamp drainage and so on. Most of it on the West Coast was done 'by the Maori and much in the North Auckland district. In this country nature provided one of the best pioneer farmers, the Maori, who was most at homo in the swamp and bush. This work was all done By European, money, planned 'by European 'brains for European farmers. The Maori always stood side by side with- the European in the rough work, but the Maori never got the credit.”

He had noted this fact in the recent utterances -of a former New Zealand professor, who, when asked what contribution the Maori had made to- the economic progress of the Dominion, only mentioned art, music and literature. Th'a-t was what he would term the museum view, and he had hastened to correct 'it because that gentleman was on the verge of publishing a book about New Zealand. Unemployment, suggested the Native Minister, was duo to the cessation of the rough work, in the preparation for scientific farming, and the chief sufferers were the Maoris of the North Island, and in consequence of those conditions, instead of living on 'Canterbury wheat, they had 'to tighten their belts and fall back on shell fish. All the Maori people had to do in the slump was to step back half a generation and live on the resources of the country. “'This, ’ ’ concluded Sir Apirana, “is the difficulty so far as the pakeha is concerned—the difference of the standard of living It is a good thing the Maori has not been civilised to the extent that he had to complain about living conditions -during the time of stress.”