enthusiastically for getting work started, worked at all hours. In a series of weekends. Mr Ropiha and his associates mapped out a plan for the Turanyawawae Estate, Taruewahia in an effort to persuade the government to pay unemployment subsidy to the workers. This was not an official duty, but it led to the government paying unemployment subsidies which enabled the Estate to be established on a firmer financial basis. His first senior appointment, to the post of Chief Surveyor, Blenheim, did not come until 1940. It came, not from ambition to climb the public service ladder, but from a certain unhappiness with the Native Department as it was then. The Permament Head tried to dissuade him from leaving, offered him prospects, and told him ‘that his real job was with his own people’. In those days very few Maoris were given responsible posts in the public service and the Native Department unfortunately was no exception. Mr Ropiha flared up and told the Permanent Head that the only job he would apply for in the Native Department would be his own. Later, among friends, he expressed great regret for this sudden and unusual burst of temper. ‘I don't know what came over me,’ he said.

Success Came Suddenly In 1947, with the post of Under-Secretary of the Native Department about to fall vacant, the Maori people thought the time had arrived-when a Maori should get this appointment. The Minister at the time was the Rt. Hon. Peter Fraser, who was sympathetic to the request. Some Maori leaders, notably from Hawkes Bay and the Waikato, recommended Tipi Tainui Ropiha as a suitable representative of the race. The man they chose had never been interested in politics, he was not known as an orator on the