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.