Shearing is a highly skilled job. This was again emphasised recently when Mr Godfrey Bowen was sent to England as a shearing instructor. Here he is in a Hawkes Bay shed demonstrating shearing techniques. (Russell Orr Photograph.) three times that amount. So too the minimum wage for shedhands is 1/7 per hour, as against 5/5 actualy paid today. These minima may seem unduly low.

Future of the Industry Economically shearing is still very important in Hawkes Bay. Yet, there is no longer the same abundance of skilled men offering; on the contrary, shearers are in short supply. The younger people do not take it up as avidly as did their fathers and mothers. For the more educated young Maori, a stable position is often more attractive than the high wages at shearing time, followed by a period of uncertain and not very attractive earnings. One complaint is that when the shearing season is over, the freezing season is of course well on the way and even if a man can get a job at the freezing works, he is put off before the men who have worked the whole season. There is some talk about how more young men can be attracted to shearing. One idea that was put to me was for freezing works and shearing contractors to come to some sort of compact enabling the men to stay at the freezing works longer. There are some obvious difficulties in this. One modern development is the large-scale shearing contractor. This is far more common, so it seems, in the North Island than the South. Right from the begining of the shearing industry, there was a close relationship between the owner and the ringer, who became a kind of intermediary. Gradually, the job of choosing a gang was passed on to this head shearer, as well as the procuring of supplies. He became a business contractor, being paid a fixed sum for the full job of shearing. This includes the gathering of the gang, the catering arrangements and also the risk of wet weather and other hold-ups. Many of the contractors are small men whose family may grow the vegetables to save some money. Others again are in business in a big way, running several gangs and no longer doing any shearing of their own as they are too busy organising. Does this mean that shearing contracting has now become an ordinary business to be taken up by anyone with a little capital? Far from it. Such a person could never collect, let alone discipline shearing gangs. To be a shearing contractor, a man must have been a shearer for some years, and, what is more, a successful shearer with a first-rate reputation at the board. The annual shearing cheque is to a shearer or shedhand an important financial security. Some shearers pay their housing mortgage annually out of their cheque. Shopkeepers also allow long term credit through the unprofitable winter months to be settled after shearing. At some stores, like the one at Fernhill, the name of the contractor appears on the account to safeguard the debt. But the system is general. Bob Tutaki is still active on his union round. He moves with a little difficulty now, but his car, faithful companion for many years, is still on the road with plenty of fight. During the last war, he was temporarily away from this work, as Maori recruiting officer (2nd Lt.) for Hawkes Bay, persuading fathers and grandfathers to part with their children for the war. In 1948, he was awarded the M.B.E. Shearing has become part of the history of the Maori people. This story is only a small part of it, mainly the memories of one man who told me something about his life. In shearing, the Maori people have been able to carry over some of their old way of life, a group life where everyone is valuable and has his own part to play and where yet competition is fierce, with a man's status depending above all else on his daily tallies.