NO CHANGE

Southland Times, Issue 22473, 8 November 1934, Page 8

NO CHANGE

FRIENDLY RELATIONS MAORI AND PAKEHA SPEECH BY SIR APIRANA NGATA (From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, November 7. The future relationships between the Maori and pakeha will not lack the harmony which has characterized them in the past, according to the concluding observations of Sir Apirana Ngata in his speech to the House to-day. “As to the future,” said the exMinister, “We say that the whole of the schemes are for the benefit of the Maori people. The day of spoon feeding and Maori landlordism is past. We don’t want that to disappear and not to replace it with something better, and we don’t want something the, Maori people cannot hold on to. We have a proverb, ‘divorce the Maori from the land and you will make him a slave.’ We don’t want the Maori to drift into association with the Chinese and Hindus.” Sir Apirana commented that the economic stress had pressed unduly on areas like Auckland and only the other day £lOO had been voted for the establishment of dwellings at Pukekohe for the accommodation of Maoris who, all over the Auckland province, had no other resources than work on the potato fields at Pukekohe. Those who had been compelled to seek work in Chinese gardens could not be blamed. After all, the first law of nature was survival. Where was that survival for the native? It was undesirable that he should drift into or near to the cities and take up an undesirable mode of living. A permanent solution was wanted and Parliament had denied that solution and assistance of State funds until 1929. Prior to that the Treasury advice had been rigidly against expenditure out of the Consolidated Fund, and the bogey of increasing the Public Debt had been raised. “It is not the Ministers who rule New Zealand,” said Sir Aparina. “It is the heads of departments. I know the business is bossed about one-tenth by the Minister and nine-tenths by the departments, yet it is direct action by the Minister that the Onposition is condemning. I don’t think any mortal in New Zealand could have handled the native problem except by tackling it face to face, going on to the field and making decisions on the spot. Perhaps I went too far and created the impression of lavish expenditure, although among my own people I have the reputation of being rather mean.” Sir Apirana said the Maoris were not urging that a housing scheme should be undertaken by the State, but the Treasury view would be that the expenditure should come out of the native funds. The Maoris, however, demanded that the State give them all the money required to help them out of the problem, stating at the same time that the money would be paid back. However, in districts like Waikato where all the lands of the Maori were taken away from them —the pakeha call them rebels; they thought they were patriots —the State might have to provide a minimum of accommodation without any expectation of repayment. Parliament was supposed to be the supreme body, so it was well to remember that at present the Treasury’ was “digging its toes in.” “The future is all right,” Sir Apirana “The House need not worry about the relations between the two races. We say in Maori ‘the dispute is between two neighbours leaning on a wall between their houses.’ Let us have broadminded and sympathetic administration of native affairs at points wherein individualities come into contact with us.”

Sir Apirana paid tribute to the fairness of his successor in office, the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes.