News in Brief

Te Ao Hou, October 1956, Page 6

News in Brief Eighteen Maoris have entered the Police Force between the beginning of last year's recruiting drive and last April. Five of these were in the first training school and the rest will go to subsequent training schools at Trentham near Wellington. The recruiting drive is continuing. * * * For the first time in the history of the Hawkes Bay Education Board, Maori will be taught as a School Certificate subject at one of its district high schools. It is the school at Tolaga Bay. * * * The Rakaumanga M.W.W. League started last year with the appointment of a piano teacher to give children of members piano lessons. An evening was arranged when these children played to members to show progress and this was a very successful meeting. At its annual progress day, the Rakaumanga League organised a mannequin parade at which all articles displayed were the work of the members including matching hats and bags. Three girls from the Maori concert party that toured Australia early this year. The girls are (from left) Margaret Mariu of Waihi, Babs Clarke of Tikitiki and Isabeile Whatarau of Hastings. (APA Picture) A new constitution accepted by the Whakatane Maori Youth Club opens membership to pakeha youth. In addition to its normal activities the club is putting on a full-length play based on local Maori history. * * * A large-scale queen carnival is being organised in Palmerston North, to take place early in the New Year. Its purpose is to raise some of the £30,000 which it is estimated will be the cost of the proposed Maori Community Centre. A site has already been purchased. It is proposed to have a three-storey building, with a meeting hall, a youth hall and a caretaker's flat. Provision will also be made for several rooms where Maori people can stay overnight, but the centre will not be a hostel. The tribal executive is working hard to raise funds, and the area from Bulls to Porirua has been divided into five zones, each of which will sponsor a candidate for the carnival. Later, an appeal will be made to Maori tribes throughout New Zealand to assist the fund, but before this is done the committee want to be able to show a good result from their own efforts. * * * The claim that the purchase of Wellington by the New Zealand Land Company under an agreement with chiefs of the Taranaki, Maniapoto and Waikato Maori tribes dated September 27, 1839, was illegal is made in a petition introduced in Parliament by Mr E. T. Tirikatene (Labour, Southern Maori). The petition, signed by Kehu Maraku and 136 others, asked for the purchase to be referred to the Maori Land Court for inquiry, and the petition was referred to the Maori Affairs Committee. * * * The senior vocational guidance officer for boys in the Auckland Vocational Guidance Centre, Mr A. L. Ferguson, says that the number of Maori boys of school leaving age who are coming to Auckland to take up apprenticeships is fast increasing. Most of the young Maori apprentices are in woodworking trades such as carpentry, joinery and cabinetmaking, but there are representatives in nearly all trades. It is the aim of the centre to widen the horizon for Maori boys from the country by giving them some understanding of the wide range of work offering. Mr Ferguson expressed the opinion that there is now no colour bar among employers. This is because of the fine record earned by Maori apprentices when the apprenticeship scheme for them was first introduced. Many firms had been forced by the shortage of labour to accept Maori apprentices, but they had been so pleased with the results that employers no longer make any distinction between Maori and pakeha when taking on extra labour.