INDUSTRIOUS NATIVES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6452, 25 February 1908, Page 6

INDUSTRIOUS NATIVES

AT TEE CHATHAM ISLANDS*' KEEN TO GET ON. The natives living at the Chatham Islands are given a remarkably high character for perseverance and industry by Dr Pomare, the Native Health Officer, who has just returned to Wellington from a visit of inspection to the group after an interval of five years. In fact, the Maoris on the islands are said to be quite as industrious and hardworking as those in any other part of the Dominion. Interviewed by a “Times 0 reporter yesterday. Dr Pomare said he had been very pleased indeed to find that the natives were faithfully carrying out all the instructions given by the Government some five years back. Great care was being taken over the important matter of sanitation, for instance, while the new houses going up (quite a number, by the way) were supplied with all the latest conveniences and were generally up to date in every respect. A most encouraging thing was that now the children, ot w’hom there was a much increased number, were being regularly sent to the Government school. This was something quite new. as hitherto the great majority of parents did not seem to take any trouble or interest in this matter. DOING MORE WORK.

What had been particularly gratifying to him was to find that now the Chatham Island Maoris had become a race of hard workers. Ever since the land had been individualised and each man had begun to work for himself, the prosperity of the group seemed to have increased. Everybody seemed to share in this condition of things. Another important matter that impressed itself upon him was that, beyond doubt, the Parihaka influence had become a thing of the past, so that an even greater degree of prosperity might confidently be looked for in the affairs of the group. Once upon a time the Maoris there used to send the bulk of their substance away to Parihaka, with bad results to themselves, but now that that influence was dead the condition of things had changed for the better. SUCCESSFUL SHEEPFARMERS.

The bulk of the two hundred and fifty odd Maoris on the islands were now comparatively prosperous sheepfarmers. Between them they owned some twenty thousand acres of land, this being divided into fourteen or fifteen runs. A good deal of the land on the islands was leased at present to pakehas, of whom there were some two hundred and fifty in the grOUp. However, Dr Pomare had no doubt that when those leases fell in in a few years the Maoris themselves would take them up and enlarge their runs. There would be about thirty thousand or more acres to come back to the natives in this way within the course of five or six years, and he expected that practically the whole, area would be taken over • and worked by the Maoris themselves. The. keenness to do something on everybody's part particularly impressed itself upon the doctor's mina. • Generally- speaking he found things going on most satisfactorily, a very great deal better, in fact, than in a good many other; places in New Zealand where the Maoris lived. Dr Pomare will, in the course of a few days, forward a full official report on the condition ox affairs to the head of his Department.