A CHIEF WITH VISION

Taranaki Daily News, 16 January 1934, Page 9

A CHIEF WITH VISION

TALK WITH RAROTONGAN LEADER. The head of the Rarotongan party visiting Waitara en route to Waitangi, king of his people, is Makenui Ariki, 0.8. E. The leader is very pleased with what he has seen so far in New Zealand and the welcomes which have been given his party.

He explained in the special interview he accorded the Daily News that he had not come to New Zealand entirely for pleasure. He was going to look into such things as Native land settlement schemes and undertakings of a like nature with a view to seeing what points could be used to advantage in his own country. From what he had heard of the farm scheme among the Maori people it impressed him as sound and as one that must receive the close attention of himself and other members of his party. Makenui Ariki is incidentally the only Native in the Cook Islands to hold the order of 0.8. E.

Though his people had suffered in the world economic stress and were badly hit by the fall in the price of copra to an export value making it hardly worth cultivation they were a very happy people. Always in good spirits, they never wanted, and Makenui Ariki added expressively they had no unemployment. If they had no money it did not worry his people. The Christian religious influence among his people was strong, the king said. The London Missionary Society was doing great work and so, too, were other bodies. The Government was doing particularly fine work with education and hospital provision. Some Rarotongan boys had won scholarships and were studying in New Zealand. It was boys such as these that his people looked to as leaders of the future. Some who had completed their education held good Government positions. One had full charge of a wireless station in the islands group. Others were studying medicine with a view to practising among their own people. One of the main objects of the Waitara visit was to pay respect to the memory of the late Sir Maui Pomare, who had been a father to the Maoris in Hawaiki, Makenui Ariki said. Families in Rarotonga, he said, were still able to trace their unbroken connection genealogically with Maoris in New Zealand. The present was the first official visit since the great imigration of seven centuries before, when Rarotonga had been the last place touched upon in the final stage of the journey. Makenui Ariki concluded that he was looking forward with the keenest interest to meeting Maori people in other parts of New* Zealand and to visiting historic Waitangi.