NEWS IN BRIEF ….

CHIEF JUDGE OF MAORI LAND COURT The appointment of Judge I. Prichard of the Maori Land Court to the position of Chief Judge of the Maori Land Court was announced recently by the Minister of Maori Affairs. Judge Prichard will succeed Chief Judge D. G. B. Morison, who retired just before Easter. Judge Prichard, who has been officiating in the Waiariki area, will be succeeded there by Judge N. Smith, who is at present Judge of the Maori Land Court in the Tairawhiti district. Judge Prichard has been a Judge of the Maori Land Court since 1945. He has officiated in the Tokerau, Waikato-Maniapoto and Waiariki districts. In recent years, he has from time to time acted as deputy to the Chief Judge. Before taking up a position on the bench of the Maori Land Court, Judge Prichard was in practice in Waitara, where he took a special interest in Maori legal work.

YOUNG ARCHITECT Alexander Reko Hesselin, aged 24, is employed as an architectural cadet with the Southland Education Board, Invercargill, where he has been employed since he was 18. He has practised both draughting and field work at all primary schools in Southland during this period. He spends his spare time studying for the Professional Examinations of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, and his studies are almost completed. His final two years of study will be spent at Auckland University School of Architecture on the diploma course, and then he hopes to continue in the Education Service for a few more years before travelling overseas in search of more practical experience. His other interests are tramping, art collection, and music, both classical and popular, and driving, but he finds that his studies take up most of his time, between seven and eight hours a day, mainly at night, though he sometimes works in the early mornings before his day's work.

MAORI BOY WINS SCHOLARSHIP A seventeen-year-old Maori boy, Rangiora Te Maari, of Mangakino, has won the Eisenhower Scholarship for 1961. He is a member of the clerical staff of the Ministry of Works at Mangakino. The scholarship of 2000 dollars was inaugurated by President Eisenhower shortly before he left office. It entitles the winner to one year's stay in the United States, of which nine months may be spent at an American University. It may be taken up at any time within the next ten years.

THE MAORI AND RURAL WORK Now that the pioneering days were over, when the Maori played an important part in the development of the land, the problem of the education and employment of the Maori people presented a challenge, said Canon H. Taepa, Maori pastor in Wanganui, at the recent annual conference of Rotary District 294. Canon Taepa said that seasonal and farm work had the advantage of not uprooting the Maori from his traditional living but that they were not to his long-term advantage. The skills he had learned in older times were not sufficient to enable him to take his place in modern society. The rapid economic and social development which had taken place in the last 20 years and the phenomenal increase in the Maori population which had occurred over the same period offered a challenge to the whole community. More rural work would be available for the Maori, but even if all the idle Maori land were settled it would not provide more than 4,000 farms, and by the time the programme was completed, the Maori population could conceivably be half a million. The majority of the Maori population would become city-dwellers. Already, more and more Maoris were entering industry, but conditions were hard for a Maori coming to the city to work. Accommodation was a big problem. In Wellington, for instance, with a Maori population of 3,200, there were only two Maori hostels which catered for only 50 or 60 young Maoris. Canon Taepa said that it was paradoxical that at a time when New Zealand industry was handicapped through lack of manpower, there were pockets of unemployment among able-bodied Maoris. He appealed to the delegates at the conference to accept the challenge presented by the 20th century Maori trying to adapt himself to the complexities of modern society.