1,300 men had been enlisted for the Services and 2,700 for the Home Guard. 3,600 Maoris had entered the essential industries. If these figures are correctly recorded there could not be many more Maoris capable of being recruited and registered for the various Services. After this time, recruiting therefore began to lose importance and the Maori War Effort Organisation began to serve much wider purposes than that of recruiting. The Organisation resembled the Maori Councils in certain ways except that it had no statutory authority of any kind, and therefore had no by-laws, and could not, enforce any rules in its own right. As, however, the administration of by-laws under the Maori Councils Act had always been a rather doubtful affair, it can be said that the Maori Councils were largely superseded in the early war years by the new Organisation. The Tribal Committees and Executives working under the Maori War Effort Organisation were not provided with finance, but they were highly successful in the collection of money which was, to a large extent, used for social amenities and Christmas Cheer for Maori servicemen, and for investment in war bonds. The ‘liaison officers’ of the Maori War Effort Organisation, however, were salaried out of War Expenses Account. This was the first time in New Zealand that an organ of Maori self-government was financed by public money. While recruiting lost its importance, the emphasis now began to be laid on food production and utilization of Maori manpower. Perhaps the greatest contribution of the Maori War Effort Organisation was the help in supplying New Zealand with labour at moments of crisis. In addition, a good deal of welfare work was taken up by the Organisation, and the Tribal Committees assumed the powers of the Maori Councils and Village Committees in a number of districts with considerable success and efficiency. In this nation-wide Organisation it was possible to read the signs of the unification of the Maori people and at least partial fading out of the distinction of tribalism. It is, however, questionable whether it was entirely the Maori War Effort Organisation which united them. After all both the Ngati Porous and the Waikato Tribes remained at a certain distance from the Organisation. Yet is can not be denied that the Maori war effort has been the means of fanning the flame of patriotism in many districts and has made possible a more even distribution of the load of the War Effort among the Maori people. There was strong feeling in the Maori world that the Maori War Effort Organisation should not disappear altogether as soon as the war ended. The Maori Councils Bill, 1943, did not provide for such continuation. A compromise had, therefore, to be found combining the purposes of this Bill, which were undoubtedly desirable, with the existing Tribal Organisations. Two schools of thought developed. Some of the leaders contended that a Minister of Maori Social and Economic Reconstruction should be created to stand independently of the Ministry for Maori Affairs, and which was ‘to provide machinery for the local self-government of the Maori race and to make better provision for their social, physical and economic wellbeing’. The idea was that such a department would act as a liaison organisation linking up the various social services with the Maori Tribal committee and executive. Others, however, objected that in that case there would be two departments administering Maori affairs, which might have resulted in a rather inefficient administration. The problem was finally solved by incorporating the Tribal Committees and Executives as they in fact existed in the Maori Councils Act.

To-day Thus the Maori Social and Economic Advancement act was passed in 1945. Outwardly this Bill is much like the earlier one; it confers a limited measure of self-government upon organised Maori communities. However, there is a great difference between the Maori councils and the committees which are now given statutory powers. First of all the tribal executive is no longer primarily a local body, like the councils, it is no more than an administrative unit, instituted for the sake of convenience. Many of the tribal committees, in towns and cities, are also mainly administrative, as Pakeha and Maori have intermingled to such an extent that many Maoris no longer live in the Maori villages. This means that the broader aspects of social and economic advancement are likely to interest a tribal committee, or executive, more than they did a Maori Council, which was primarily concerned with local body problems. The most important advance in the new Act is, of course, that subsidies are now granted and travelling expenses of members (Continued on page 46)