MAORI WELFARE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 71, 23 February 1937, Page 13

MAORI WELFARE

LAND SETTLEMENT SCHEMES. CHRISTCHURCH, Feb. 21. “The settlement of the Maori on his own land offers perhaps the widest scope for promoting his welfare and prosperity,” said the Minister for Industries and Commerce (Hon. D. G. Sullivan) when speaking a.t a banquet given in his honour at the Tuahiwi pa last evening. To-day there were 77 separate development schemes embracing a total area of 668,885 acres, Mr Sullivan said. The distribution of the present schemes covered all the seven Maori land districts, including the South Island, where there were at present three schemes in active operation. Expenditure on development since its inception up to March 31, 1936 (including interest), amounted to the sum of £1,123,182, while expenditure lor the nine months ended December 31, 1936, reached the sum of £244,789. Hot all of those sums was reclaimable from the Maori owners of the land or the Maori settlers, as the Government .had provided from Unemployment Relief Funds the very considerable sum of £181,822 to March 31, 1936, and the further sum of £99,065 for the nine months referred to. This was free money to assist the development of the natives’ lands besides providing relief for unemployed Maoris to that extent.

The cash collections from the lands and the occupiers of the setled portions amounted to £379,039 up to and including March 31, 1936. Collections from the same sources for the nine months ended December 31, 1936, totalled the sum of £65,290 and it was confidently anticipated that the total for the year would reach the handsome amount of £160,000, the Minister said. These cash collections were available for the payment of interest and the reduction of the loan capital found by the Government, and to that extent reduced the cost of the land.

“The Government has assisted Maoris from unemployment funds in other ways than through Native land development schemes. Apart from the assistance through development and through the unemployment schemes, the sum of £78,883 has been expended in providing employment for Maoris on privately-owned lands and on road access to such lands up to March 31, 1936. From that date up to December 31, 1936 (nine months of the current year), a further sum of £90,816 has been expended in relief of Maori unemployed by the present Government (apart from the activities of the unemployment branch of the Labour Department) on similar lands,” said Mr Sullivan