TRIBESMEN GET THEIR OWN FARMS

Te Ao Hou, May 1957, Page 36

TRIBESMEN GET THEIR OWN FARMS Wherever possible, individual farmers were settled as lessees or owners. There were altogether 6,000 acres near the lake, either leased or sold to Europeans and then recovered by the Maori owners with finance provided by the State. The areas were farmed by the Department of Maori Affairs for a while until the debt on the blocks was repaid and in 1954 the owners took over and subdivided the land into unit farms settled by families, in many cases of returned servicemen. Seven Ngati Pikiao ex-servicemen were settled on another Rotoiti block under Rehabilitation. This block of 3,446 acres bought by the Crown in 1948, was originally part-Maori and part-European land. The Maori part was sold to the Crown on condition that only Ngati Pikiao servicemen would be settled. A number of these who aspired to settlement worked on the scheme during the development stages, but final settlement had to be, according to the Rehabilitation system, by ballot. Of the men settled, one (Mr T. R. Kingi) won last year's Ahuwhenua Trophy competition for sheep and cattle, and another (Mr E. C. Pohio) became second in the same competition. Mr Foley Eru, of Horohoro, winner of the 1956 Ahuwhenua Dairy Trophy, also has Ngati Pikiao affiliations. What happened at Lake Rotoiti happened also in many other parts of New Zealand. Right through the country, Maori farmers, often quite independent of State aid, are tilling their own land and safeguarding it for their children. Standing above the Takeke woolshed, you can see most of Lake Rotoiti. (PHOTO: PETER BLANC)