Settling the Maori

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 637, 13 April 1929, Page 8

Settling the Maori

PROBLEM OF THE FAR NORTH

ONE of the most baffling problems in the North Auckland district is the settlement of the Maoris on their own land. Experiments in some districts, however, are showing that by individualising the occupancy and consolidating the ownership, much native land can be brought into productivity.

MANY of the political difficulties in the Far North concern the Maoris. Presumably on account of congenial climate and easy living conditions, the natives in the Northland always have been a strong community numerically. A large number of their holdings are unsullied by the speculating hand of the pakeha, and where the way of agricultural progress is smooth there is little complaint of them as settlers. But the pathway to progress in the North is not strewn with roses, particularly for the Maoris, who are faced rZ & *

& yZ with obstacles of ownership as well as those of poor class land. Here and there are big blocks of property, in which are interested several branches of one family or several sections of one tribe. The temperament of the native cannot reconcile itself to one man improving this land for the benefit of sometimes 50 other part-owners; the part-owners simply do not feel like helping, so the land.is not worked. That is one problem. Another is raised by the scattered interests which certain groups possess in big estates. Some of it has been cut up and sold, leaving here and there small areas which cannot be worked individually but which could be profitably used if they were consolidated. These are the lines upon which Sir Apirana Ngata, now Minister of Native Affairs, tackled the problem on the East Coast, and upon these lines also has it been attacked in the Far North with promising results. For some time a valuer has been travelling over the northern counties, fixing the value of the native land, some of which will cost from £5 to £l2 to bring into productivity, and

some of which is now worth £lO an j acre unimproved. At Te Kao, a small settlement on the ; Parengarenga Harbour, is to be seen ! the fruits of the first serious endeavj our to settle the Maori oil his own I land. The occupancy has been individualised and the natives are paid six ! shillings a day to work their ot\n holdings, this amount becoming a charge against the land for eventual i repayment. About 700 acres have been ploughed up, and a further 250 acres are sown in grass; and 30 native settlers are keeping up a steady supply of cream to the Awanui dairy factory. In December of last year this community of 130 farmers contributed 17,7741 bof cream to the factory—cream which the I manager reported to be of excellent quality. SPREADING THE WORK This outstanding achievement was registered in two years in a district from which nothing whatever in the way of produce has been brought for the past 50 or 00 years. Inspired further by the success of Sir Apirana Ngata with the East Coast natives, those interested in the northern settlement have arranged for a similar scheme at Whatuwhiwhi, in Doubtless Bay. The finance is not yet completely arranged, but there is every indication that conditions for dairying there will be similar to those in Ta Kao. The establishment of these two communities has revealed the possibilities not only for Maori settlement, but for production generally in the third and fourth-class land in the northern areas. During the past half-century many of the Maoris have been earning their living on the gum-fields, on the railway construction works, in the bush and on public works jobs. Timber is nowworked out and gone for ever, railways construction is a proven failure in the remote localities, the gumfields provide only intermittent work on account of the precarious market, while Public Works jobs have been taken largely by Dalmatians and other foreigners. MAORIS’ ALTERNATIVE The Maori now has to fall back for revenue upon his tribal heritage—his land. The alternative is charitable relief. Land owners are not paying their rates, and the presence in the hospitals of crowds of natives has accentuated the difficulty for the local authorities. The Maori has in recent years surmounted his inherent . prejudice against hospital treatment, and the result is that he now visits the district hospitals with anything from a cut finger to advanced consumption. The prospect of payment is remote, and the counties are desperate. Enterprising forces are at work, however, plodding cheerfully forward toward a solution of the native difficulties. Those who back these movements claim that, given the hearty cooperation of the State, the local bodies and the settlers themselves, a few years will see a tangible impression made upon the problerrv