would create a single nationwide body of Maori students whose activities would be planned on a national scale. Our other important proposal was for a special tutor to be appointed to each university to look after the progress of Maori students. Some European academics were known to support this idea which looked like a good way of improving students' examination results. So the secretary put all the papers back into her little leather suitcase and we dispersed in the dark streets of Wellington. Journey to Auckland Night trains are almost entirely what you make of them. In the sleepers they are formal—service, tips, deference to the peculiar, impressive guest, long polite conversations with polished cabin mates, perhaps a sly whisky. In the first class they are still subdued and demure—some people wrapped up like stuffed cabbages, others nursing their migraines in their hands, thirty-three islands swimming in a gradually deteriorating atmosphere. In the early morning the pressed pillows are empty, the crumpled faces pale and sticky. It is quite wrong to look upon this as the effect of the train on the transportees, for these have their fate in their own hands. Ten of us boarded a second class carriage in Wellington and at once we owned that part of the carriage and we were having a party. The inevitable conference papers were briefly slipped into selected hands by our secretary; an early copy of Manning's book about the bodgie was eagerly read and vaguely discussed; the food was unending; and people tried at times to leap over our preserve, blockaded by our blankets and luggage on all sides and more especially by a big guitar case with ‘The Comets’ in white paint,—and the guitar itself was being strummed by one of our more gallant companions. There was of course the battle of the lights—everyone else in the carriage wanted the lights out and we slowly complied, one light after another and eventually even the last one. But the soft conversation and the occasional song lasted; we were far too smug to buy cups of tea at the end of rainy station platforms; we all had a little sleep too. We woke up like birds. Our breakfast reception at Auckland University had been planned to the last jamjar on the cafeteria tables; such masterly efficiency might have left us worried and bashful had it all come off but fortunately a high functionary of the reception committee had slept in with the key and the very brief spell before order was restored made us feel comfortable and at home. The aims of the students The first great test was the welcome ceremony. This was in the university hall, a fine gothic chamber where cigarettes are taboo. The Aucklanders, fortified by their Department of Maori Studies and many years of experience, put on a most elaborate and traditional welcome. Wellington, lacking these resources, went bravely through the hakas and action songs; then came our orator. He stood in front of the hall in deep silence, made his preliminary incantation, and then a deep silence. For what seemed many minutes hardly a word came from the orator but then suddenly the sentences came flowing out splendidly, expressing all the appropriate sentiments, and the honour of Wellington was saved. This was the first speech he had ever made in Maori; his ancestors had not deserted him. For the rest of the day we had lectures,—Dr Biggs, Mr Ropiha, Mr K. Robertson and several others. Most of the lectures were rather practical—scholarships, bursaries, trust board grants, jobs for the finished academic. One of the speakers was a little disappointed at the mundaneness of his carefully stipulated subject. Yet I do not think the students have unduly limited interests. Compared to the famous students of 1897, they are of course less ambitious, but naturally so. The members of the Young Maori Party would prepare lectures on almost any subject—the history of the Maori Church, education, Maori employment, the position and influence of the Clergy, Maori politics, sexual morality, ‘a scheme of reform work among the Maori people’. At the Presidential table were Mr John Tapiata (left), Captain of the Auckland University Maori Club, Secretary, Mr Pat Hohepa, a junior lecturer in the Department of Anthropology. (Auckland Star photograph)