We Keep Our Land for Our Children

Te Ao Hou, May 1957, Page 32

We Keep Our Land for Our Children TEXT: E. G. SCHWIMMER PHOTOGRAPHY: PETER BLANC You will find the Major by the haystack, we were told, and there he was, keeping young by manipulating large sheets of corrugated iron to cover the stack. Three younger people were with him. Major Vercoe (NPS PHOTOGRAPH) We sat down together on u tree stump. I had previously met Major Relwhati Vetcoe. D.S.O., O.B.E., D.S.M., at large huis where he represented the Arawa tribe, or the soldiers of the first world war, an orator noted in both Meori and English for his clear, precise and measared spceches. But this was different; he was now on his family land working as a farmer, remarkably athletic for his seventy years. Soon we were talking about one of the subjects closest to the Major's heart: seltling Maoris on their ancestral land. Major Vereoe has taken a prominent part in land development in his district ever since the government scheme started and even several years before that. It has been a life work to him. His tribe, Ngati Pikiao, thirty-five years ago had hardly any experience of farming their own land. Today, after a long struggle by the tribe, many thousands of acres of good undulating sheep land surrounding Lake Rotoiti are farmed by Ngati Pikiao incorporations and individual settlers. As an old soldier, Major Vercoe takes particular pleasure in the fact that many of the settlers and some of the managers are returned servicemen from the second world war.

Pataka at Mourea Pa. Lake Rotitl. (PHOTO: PETER BLANC One of the things Major Vercoe has learnt is the wisdom of splitting up incorporations into areas belonging as much as possible to one family group. Often a block of Maori land contains several thousand acres and has a very complex ownership. It is easier in practice to manage such a block simply and harmoniously and far better results are obtained if ownership is confined to immediate relatives and the ultimate ideal around Lake Rotoiti is to have areas of about 400–500 acres settled by the nominee of one family, as an individual settler. This is often not so easy to achieve but it is an ideal worth working for. Some parents of Ngati Pikiao have helped by vesting their interests in their children which helps them if they are farming on land they own in part. Rei Vercoe has one of these, but as he explained to us, thE duties were very heavy. Once he had given his land, how did people think he could pay gift duties? The Major does not regard this of the more brilliant European inventions. The land on which we were sitting was T block, the most recent of the Ngati Pikiaoing ventures. It lies just a few miles away Lake Rotoiti, at the end of Hongi's Trac years it was leased to miller and the mill there. In 1954 the owners, from their own and with some finance from the Maori Trustee began to develop it as a sheep and cattle station Under the management of Mr Pirimi Wha of the owners of the block, new areas are

Mr Mapu Morehu, chairman of the Taheke Incorporation is drafting fat lambs. He takes a few minutes off to give his views on incorporations to Te Ao Hou. (PHOTOH 6ETER BLANC) and stocked each year. The long range purpose is to settle the owners in family groups when development is sufficiently advanced. The incorporation's policy will be not to allow settlement before all debt is repaid, the land is fully stocked and enough cash is available to give the new settlers a financial start. The chairmanship of Tautara Incorporation is the only formal position Major Vercoe now holds; the other incorporations now being on a sound footing and administered by his own people, he has left them to the younger generation to run. He also gave up the chairmanship of the Arawa Trust Board, content to play the role of the elder statesman in all tribal affairs.