THE MAORI AND RURAL WORK

Te Ao Hou, June 1961, Page 43

THE MAORI AND RURAL WORK Now that the pioneering days were over, when the Maori played an important part in the development of the land, the problem of the education and employment of the Maori people presented a challenge, said Canon H. Taepa, Maori pastor in Wanganui, at the recent annual conference of Rotary District 294. Canon Taepa said that seasonal and farm work had the advantage of not uprooting the Maori from his traditional living but that they were not to his long-term advantage. The skills he had learned in older times were not sufficient to enable him to take his place in modern society. The rapid economic and social development which had taken place in the last 20 years and the phenomenal increase in the Maori population which had occurred over the same period offered a challenge to the whole community. More rural work would be available for the Maori, but even if all the idle Maori land were settled it would not provide more than 4,000 farms, and by the time the programme was completed, the Maori population could conceivably be half a million. The majority of the Maori population would become city-dwellers. Already, more and more Maoris were entering industry, but conditions were hard for a Maori coming to the city to work. Accommodation was a big problem. In Wellington, for instance, with a Maori population of 3,200, there were only two Maori hostels which catered for only 50 or 60 young Maoris. Canon Taepa said that it was paradoxical that at a time when New Zealand industry was handicapped through lack of manpower, there were pockets of unemployment among able-bodied Maoris. He appealed to the delegates at the conference to accept the challenge presented by the 20th century Maori trying to adapt himself to the complexities of modern society.