THE MAORI STUDENT FEDERATION BY A. ARMSTRONG AND L. STEWART Alan Armstrong is a Vice-President of this newly formed organisation, and played a considerable part in its foundation. Lionel Stewart represents the Federation in the University of Canterbury Maori Club, of which he is also Secretary. As organisations within a movement multiply, sooner or later the need is felt for co-ordination on a national scale. Groups working independently of one another, even though it be for a common purpose, often reach a stage where ineffective communication and differences of policy become a handicap. When this happens some sort of unifying body is imperative. By the time the third Conference of Maori Students was held in 1957, an increasing need for better communications between the various University and Teachers' College Maori Clubs was becoming evident. Once in a year we would get some idea of what others were doing, but not really enough to be beneficial. All of us, and particularly the smaller and more isolated Clubs, needed more interchange of ideas and information. The organisation of Conference could profit from a pooling of resources. Too often in the past, when everything had been left to the host Club for the year, visitors would bring along useful ideas only to find no room for them on the agenda. Furthermore, a Federation could give us authoritative spokesmanship on matters of national concern, with the benefits of a unified policy on everything affecting Maori students. The 1957 Conference did not treat the idea kindly, regarding our hasty last-minute proposal put before it as premature. During the months that followed, a handful of students in Wellington privately chewed over the idea, and slowly a convincing case for such a body grew into a remit for the next Conference. After lively discussion it was approved in principle, and a committee was set up to plan the structure of Federation and bring it into existence. One of the authors of this article sat on that committee, which being scattered all over the country had to do most of its work by correspondence–and often informal correspondence at that. It took two years to find a scheme acceptable to everyone. Many details had to be ironed out to make the scheme workable. We finally decided to have an Executive resident in Wellington, consisiting of eight elected officers and one person representing each Club. The elected officers were to have the job of managing the affairs of Federation, but had no say in policy. The Club representatives were given one vote per 25 members of their Club, which made sure that policy would in fact be determined by the Clubs and really would represent the majority opinion of members, while the implementation of that policy would still be in the hands of those most capable of handling it. At Club level, Federation is represented in each Club by one member on the Committee specially assigned to the job of maintaining active communication. The formation committee submitted a constitution to the 1960 Conference, which ratified it and established the New Zealand Federation of Maori Students by electing its officers for the first year. The dream of three years ago had become a reality. A word or two about the inaugural Executive. Miss Whetu Tirikatene, the President, needs no introduction to readers. Of the three Vice-presidents, Whatarangi Winiata will also be known to many. Whatarangi is a past-president of the Victoria University of Wellington Maori Club, and is at present doing post-graduate study at the University of Michigan. Pat Hohepa, also a Vice-President, is an Anthropology graduate and a lecturer at the University of Auckland, and has long been prominent in Maori student activities. The other Vice-President, Alan Armstrong, is co-author of this article and is a research chemist with the Health Department in Christchurch. The Secretary, Pamela Ormsby, is on the Ministerial staff of private secretaries. Ari Paul, the Treasurer, is