them and possibly better. Educational qualifications don't come into this job, of course. yet most of them are capable of much better things.” On the question of noise the Maori drivers would hardly agree. “You find a time comes, even on a Euclid, when you get deaf,” said one. “Your nerves go on you, and you have to give it up for a while.” Others only noticed noise from machines not their own. “It's all right if you're getting power for your noise,” one man summed it up, “but noise is no good if there's no power.” An older Maori, deskbound in Parliament Building, told us he had heard discussion of the Maori's prowess with heavy machines and had made a point of watching them in action. “By coincidence,” he said, “I was able to see two people working two power schovels, one Maori and the other pakeha. The pakeha's machine was jerking and shuddering, as if trying to bite off too much at once. The Maori had his swinging like a poi. It looked to me as if there was a sense of rhythm which allowed him to do a better job. Of course in the past there was always the taiaha—the hand-to-hand fighting of the Maori—in which a man had to have tremendous co-ordination of eye and brain and hands and feet. Some of the same abilities might be called for in driving a bulldozer or a scoop.” A love of speed, which may have something to do with the Maori's higher (3 to 1) ratio of accidents with motor vehicles, carries over into the everyday toil of moving earth. No machine is exactly supersonic, but one or two are capable of more than the usual two speeds, Dead Slow and Stop, and these are in greater demand. One pakeha driver complained with a grin that when a Maori came and asked to “have a go” at his machine it was impossible to get him off it. “I have to take over the Maori's machine for the rest of the day.” Working for long periods away from home seems not to concern the Maori driver. Indeed, one of his few jibes at his pakeha workmate is that he does not stick to the job. “A lot of them don't have time to become any good,” one of them put it. “They don't stay long enough.” For the Maori, of course, long absences from home have some roots in tradition. Before the pakeha's coming war parties were frequently away for several months, and in more recent times the Maori shearing gang has become a national institution. Apart from the presence of quantities of massive machinery, the main pre-requisites for happiness on the job are—as with any other worker—good tucker and good mates. Given these the Maori machine operator will commute considerable distances to work. One we spoke to rises about five each morning and travels 50 miles to be on time for his seven o'clock start. Pakeha opinions on the Maori predilection for machinery range from near-libel to vast admiration. “They love power,” said one. “Big machines, big private cars, never little ones. It makes them feel superior.” Another thought the whole matter was explained by a single fact: “The Maori prefers sitting down to walking on his own two feet.” A third, who had been long engaged in earth-moving work, thought the skilled driving involved came naturally: “He is the faster and the better operator. I've had both Maoris and pakehas on jobs and I'd back the Maori every time to get the work done quicker. His disposition is more jovial too; he'll joke whether conditions are bad or good. “On nearly all construction jobs you'll find a big percentage of Maoris. Most are operating Machines, and if they're not, the first thing they ask is if they can have the next operator's job. They'll even drop in wages to go on to a machine. I remember men leaving a co-operative contract where they were getting nine shillings an hour to go as operators at six and elevenpence. That's a big reduction in pay. And the job can be dangerous if a driver isn't good. If a man missed a gear on some of these hills you could pick up what was left of him in a sack.” On one block where the percentage of Maoris was highest, we found eight men finishing lunch in the shelter hut. For the seven Maoris the meal had been a communal affair from a pot of pork; for the lone pakeha a matter of sandwiches and buns. Outside, their machines were neatly parked in the yellow mire created by the morning's rain. Our inquiry elicited a number of thoughtful responses, softly interjected between the barrage of jokes and legpulls at our own and each other's expense. “It's interesting work—anything's better than the banjo” “The banjo?” “A shovel. Some people call it a Mexican sideloader.” “The Maori's more sensitive to machinery; he's got the touch. Or maybe he's more mechanically-minded.” “It's outdoor work—we like to get a tan.” “There's a lot of independence—and only one boss. Too many bosses on a lot of other jobs.” “The white man jibs at work on heights. It's all a matter of nerve—you've got to have nerves. and you've got to be sober.” All the men stressed that the job was safe enough if a man kept his mind on it. Both they and many of the pakehas agreed that a Maori was more single-minded; until the work was done it was only the work that mattered. One pakeha thought the performance of men of his own race was adversely affected by their preoccupation with the future; the Maori's biggest enemy was boredom. The Maori drivers seemed to bear out the theory, stressing that their work with machines presented continuous change and challenge. It was, in a word, interesting. Not like the banjo. It was not long, of course, before the troll which sits on many a Maori shoulder showed his