MAORI LAND SETTLEMENT

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20387, 30 December 1937, Page 6

MAORI LAND SETTLEMENT

One of the interesting reports presented to Parliament last session was that of the Board of Native Affairs. It reviewed the conditions of the people from the early days, and holds that their welfare is indubitably bound up with the land. The plans to re-estab-lish the Maoris on the land are not of long-standing, but the report states that already nearly three-quarters of a million acres have been brought under the provisions of the Native Land Act and of this area nearly 180,000 acres are in process of cultivation and improvement, or are being farmed as settled holdings. Last year twenty-one new settlement groups were formed and the number of settlers under the various schemes is approaching 1500. The settlers, with their families dependents and farm workers, aggregate 16,000, so that the plan has been fairly launched. The improved prices ruling for primary products last year were of great assistance the returns from the schemes increasing by 30 per cent, when compared with those of the preceding year. It is to be hoped that the work will be pushed ahead vigorously. The young Maoris are keen to obtain holdings, but there are peculiar difficulties in the districts where lands were confiscated years ago. It would be an excellent thing if the Minister of Lands, who has been in charge of these schemes, could find time during the recess to visit the Waikato and personally inspect what has been done here. . It forms the best possible* assurance of what could be achieved if suitable holdings were made available. There is, as has been said, a real hunger for a piece of land, and the capacity to improve it and farm it on modern lines has been amply proved. The policy to-day is said to be “to asssit the Maori to develop and farm his lands, to train him in those branches of agriculture must suited to his needs, to occupy profitably and improve his idle territory, to settle and cultivate the remnants of his tribal inheritance and with the assistance of State funds to rehabilitate and establish him as a producing and self-rjUant citizen.” That is excellent, but where the opportunities for settlement are few, owing to prior action on the part of the State, then the need is to provide areas for development. If only in the interests of the health of the people something must be done. The housing conditions will have to be changed, and the sooner the better. The position here lias difficulties not experienced elsewhere, but the young people are hopeful, and under the leadership available they can do the work and do it well. A visit from the Minister would enable them to place these and other important matters before him, and he could see what has been done already where opportunity was afforded.