MOVEMENT TO THE CITIES

Te Ao Hou, December 1959, Page 25

MOVEMENT TO THE CITIES For those who could not go to the war there came the call to help the war effort, and thousands of Maoris of all ages and sexes were brought into the cities to work on the various projects allotted them. A new and greater acquaintance with the city was being built up. The demands of the all-out war effort were felt in Tolaga Bay, as elsewhere, and every available person was speedily drafted for service, The

drift to the cities had begun in earnest and the post war labour shortages accelerated the drift to a tide. Whole families left the district to settle in the cities where they enjoyed the same benefits that seem to call unceasingly to our New Zealand citizens. This drift to the cities has occurred with equal force in the European population. The significant thing, however, is that the drift, or tide, is truly like a tide in that it flows in with a surge but ebbs away just as effectively. The young people go to the cities, some never come back, but they are in the minority. The majority alternate backwards and forwards on vacations and long weekends. They get married and find that they cannot get accommodation, and then they are forced to come home and accept rural employment. Others tire of city life quite early and return home, rarely to wander again. This by no means exhausts the possibilities. Two apprentices, with only a matter of weeks to go, quit their jobs. Others sent out under vocational guidance quit after qualifying in their unsuitable vocations.