THREE SALIENT POINTS

Northern Advocate, 8 November 1934, Page 3

THREE SALIENT POINTS

BELATED PROCEEDINGS ATTACK ON HIS 'TRIBE •.BITTERLY RESENTED

£From Our Parliamentary Special. l WELLINGTON, This Day. ‘.Three outstanding general points were made;‘by Sir Apirana Ngata, the former Native Minister, when, in the House':of Representatives yesterday, he spoke in the debate on the report of the Native Commission, whose report l # ed to his from the Cabinet. They- were:— (1) .That it Would have been more advantageous to him had he resigned 11 months ago,-and had a prosecution with definite- charges been launched. (2) That Ke would continue in public lifeyand maintain his work for his people. , (3) That the Native race, in accepting the .verdict of Parliament rather than, that of the, c6mmission, would take’hope and courage from the debate. Bitter .resentment of the fact that the commission, <ln its strictures on the administration of Native affairs, had mainly on the East "Cpast' tribes, and ‘ particularly on the in which he was born, the Ngati-Porou, . ’ was voiced by Sir Apirana.... d ;;“Let:riri.Pakeha throw mud at my tribe,” he said. “It deserves well for the stand it has taken in civilisation, and honour is due to it for the efforts it has advanced to ihake it easier for the Pakeha arid the administration of his laws.” - , The, former Minister declared that the; East;.Coast tribes were the bete noir of. the Native Affairs Commission. Anything relative to the district was singled out for special mention, which was unfair to one of the most deserving communities in New Zealand. Critics had said that every £SOO that went eastward was bad, but nothing was said about ‘ thousands that went elsewhere. If tjpcre was any section of the Maori people which had a legitimate grouse against the tone arid details. of the report, it Was the tribe in which he was born and bred. They deserved the commendation of all New Zealand for the part they had taken in the reformation of the Maori race. They were the people who had. put their money into the movement as well as all their efforts, and that would not be the end of their enterprise, in spite of the report that gave false colours. The Ngati-Porou was one of the ,tribes that had not sponged on the? .Government. When Mr. Coates was Minister of Finance, said Sir Apirana, he had consistently, turned, down recommendations'from the ■ Native Department that anyone from that tribe should go on-,the Native civil list. They had put their. resources forward to heal tribal differences, and one would expect that a judicial document wouldgive the proper perspective, allowing people to draw honest conclusions from the correct facts. He trusted an opportunity would be made available in a day to crime for Maori members to.place the proper facts on record. He considered some of his best work had been done when he was a private member, and he did not despair of doing his best again as a private member',' but his tribe must not be subject to unfair attack. It deserved much .for its leadership and the actions it had taken in improving* tribal relationships in order .to facilitate-the--operations’ of tlaw gf thri Pakeha,' Who did; riot understand the problems. . ; Singled, Out, , ’.Sir Apirana asked , why: the .. East Coast had been singled put in' reference to? earthquake relief, when it was Well known that the earthquake happened, in IJawke’s Bay and Wahoa. Nothing was- said about the expenditure of £I2OO from the Maori Purposes Fund in cleaning up villages in the; Waikato after an outbreak of dysentry, which had caused 40 deaths. It a proper perspective were aimed at, rill, the facts'; should be .stated. - ■Dealing with charges of partiality in . the distribution of unemployment relief, Sir Apirana Ngata said that in those references the biggest untruth of all occurred. It was easy to divide the total amount by the registered unemployed in each district and then say one district had had more than another. The Gisborne people had received little in the way of unemployment relief, but, tucked' away in the corner of the report, there was a statement that the commission could not give a considered judgment until it knew how the unemployment funds had been distributed in other districts. Why place half a dozen facts on record? Nothing would have pleased the Unemployment Board more than to have made a grant to cover the whole of the Maoris, but he had re- j fused that. He had suggested that j his people would be 'helped only i through schemes in the districts where there were land development schemes, Native land boards and Native farmers. “I don’t believe in No. 5 Scheme,” said; Sir Apirana. “It is most degrading to the Maori race. I refuse to administer any such scheme.” He asked why incomplete.facts had been recorded in order to damn the people for whose good he had been striving for the greater part of his life. It was a libel on one of the most deserving tribes in New Zealand. Sir Apirana began by giving his opinion that the Leader, of the Opposition wqs -one of the members of the House who had a knowledge of the Native question, yet Mr. Savage had mixed up two or three different things. If that was the. effect of the commission’s report on a member who was admittedly informed and intelligent, what must be the effects on the minds of the public outside? “Very Unhappy Time.” When the Goldsmith charges were laid 11 months ago he had offered to resign, but the Prime Minister would not accept his resignation, declaring that it would be the best thing to see the fight through. “So I remained in the Cabinet for 11 months and had a very unhappy time” continued Sir Apirana. “I was advised by the Prime Minister arid certain of my colleagues to remain in the Cabinet, but in my own interests it would have been better if I had gone out. I think we would have put up a better fight and been cleared to bring before the commission evidence which We would have * been entitled to give if this inquiry ’had taken the form of a prosecution. It never took that, form at the beginning;' but towards the v end it was paterit to ’ the whole of New Zealand that it was a vicious prosecution. It left me as a Minister hampered in many ways that members may not realise

“Every file relating to development schemes was taken from my office and was in possession of the commission until last week. The files of the Native Department were theoretically open to those (vho required them to check up, but they were always with the commission and there ivas difficulty in getting them. I am not squealing, but I do say it would have been better if there had been a straight-out prosecution with definite charges, which, however, were not made until towards the end. They ought to have been tabulated at the beginning so that we would know what we would have to meet, and we could have put up a better fight.”

Part Of Gentlemen,

i Sir Apirana spoke appreciatively of I his Cabinet colleagues during what he t called that “unhappy eleven months,” . He particularly thanked the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance ( for their courtesy and consideration. 1 However, 'whatever their opinions of him might have been, they had played the part of gentlemen. He resigned from Cabinet the day after the report had been presented to the Government because of its tenor.' If members would take the trouble to check up the report they would find that twothirds of it was against the Native Minister. It was not exactly a detailed indictment, but the combined effect of the report was to make it I impossible for him in honour to remain in Cabinet. So after consulting his colleagues, the North Island Maoris, he resigned. There were men better able than himiself to deal with the question of the corporate responsibility of the Cabinet. “But,” said Sir Apirana, “the charge of the amendment of the Leader of the Opposition was answered by the gentlemen who started the whole of these • investigations, the Auditor-General, in that gentleman’s statement in the House as to the steps the Government had taken in regard to the reorganisation of the Native Department. What is happening now is an inquest, hot the preparation of reorganisation of .the ..department, because that has been taking place all the time. “Now what remains for me as a Maori?” asked Sir Apirana. “What remains for me as a member of Parliament, and a public man? This is to ask whether I can still hold my head up. So far as the Maori people are concerned, members heard the verdict from Mr. Tau Henare, who is not only member for Northern Maori, but one of the leading chiefs of the district and a representative Maori of New Zealand. He has no need to think as a Maori, because He is one, and you had .from him the appreciation of the Leaders of the Maori race ! —and amongst them I have no doubt I can hold my head up. What about the Pakeha?’,’ Mr. H. G. R. Mason (Labour—Auckland Suburbs): “The same.” Culprit Or “White.” Sir Apirana suggested that he had j been referred to as an arch culprit, but in Cabinet rooms the Minister of Finance had told the Prime Minister and the Minister of Industries and Commerce after the Audit Department had investigated the accounts of the Waiapu farmers and the NgatiPorou Dairy Company and some. stock transactions, that “the Minister j is white.”

“I can accept that as a compliment, j although I am a Maori,” continued Sir j Apirana, who added that others had | expressed their ' views in his favour, i He appreciated the utterance of Mr. ■ Atmore and Mr. Broadfoot, who knew j what efforts had been made in Native j land development. i “If I can hold up my head amongst j my people and hold up my head in , Parliament as an honourable man,in, face of. this report, life will be worth j living in the days that remain ahead, j because there is a good deal to be ; done in spite of this report,” he said., “The Maori problems remain, and : any man worthy of his salt has to , keep going, and I will keep going until I drop. One criticism of that report is that it placed the picture in such a way that the man outside is shaking; his head and wondering what sort of : a man the Native Minister is. That is the viciousness of the report. That is the worst criticism I can offer.” He thanked Mr- . Jull for his valiant effort; to place the report in proper perspec-; tive for it was a -badly arranged re- ; port, with xxo lights Band shades in it.; It thresned away at the small things j and in some respects failed entirely to | grip the big things. ] Commenting on the hint of the j Leader of the Opposition that some- i one might make an effort-to stir up | trouble among the Native people, Sir j Apirana declared he would hasten to assure the Prime Minister that, so far j as the Maori members were concerned, they would use every effort to seel that any .misunderstandings that were j likely to arise would be cleared away, | and that the position of Parliament : would be explained to* the Maori | people. . j Hope And Courage.. , ] “We take hope and courage from j the debate,” he continued. “We are more interested in that than in the matter , contained in this report, which is good stuff for the Opposition to use. We take comfort from this fact that on both sides of the House of Parliament is unanimous in one thing, its goodwill towards the Maori people, and want to see the best done for them. We thank them for that.” Some of the Maori people had said that the Native Minister was got rid of because others were jealous, and because he was the only man who could stand up against the pakeha. The pakeha had no tribes, but he had constituents, for whom he was supposed to work day and night. Turning to criticism of himself for dealing with mortgages as chairman of the Native Trust, Sir Apirana asked why the commission had not put it on record that the Native Minister was not an owner. That surely was something that might have been said for him. If there was anything in the suggestion of graft what could be said was that so far as the three blocks in question were concexmed he was not an owner, and the mortgages were ax’x-anged four or five years before he became Native Minister, and one was due or overdue when he was api pointed, ! “I want to ask, Ministers and members of Parliament,” he said, “what they have been doing during the past few years—-legislating, using their personal influence to keep men on the land and stop them from being driven off? How many of you can be exculpated from that charge? If there is any credit to be obtained it is from the fact that everybody was doing it and som6 little ci’edit might bo given to the Native Minister in regard to | the land of his own people in which ' lie had no small intoi’ost.”