good of both Maori and Pakeha were as a long-time Industrial Welfare Officer, as a member of the Petone Borough Council, as a member of the New Zealand Maori Council, as a long-time worker for the Labour Party and member of its National Executive. Steve was too young to die. But if the end was inevitable it could not have been in more fitting surroundings. He died in the Maori-decorated Maori Affairs Committee Room of Parliament Buildings while the committee was considering the Maori Affairs Bill—legislation in which he took an intense interest. As he lay there on a Wednesday morning peaceful in death in the Maori Affairs Committee Room I thought how appropriate were his surroundings. There in the room he loved so well beneath the giant facsimile of the Treaty of Waitang and the photographs of Maori Members of Parliament of an earlier generation—Buck, Ngata, Carroll. Pomare. How fitting an epitaph to a lifetime of service to the Maori people.

He Poroporoaki i te Ariki o te Tairawhiti, i a Puti Watene Tipene, M.P. Kua horo ngā puāwai o te Rātā, kua memenge ngā rau, kua maroke te tinana, kua heke te wai ki ngā pakiaka, ki te kōpū nui o Papatuanuku. Haere, e Tipene, haere ki te Pō, haere ki ō tūpuna, ki te Iwi, te ara o ngā ariki, ngā kīngi me ngā rangatira. Haere, haere! Whatiia ake ngā puapua o Papatuanuku, te tōtara whakamarumaru o te Wao-nui-a-Tāne. Nga maunga teitei o te wā kua oti te whakahoro te mea hei mānia. Haere, e te hoa, i roto i ngā whakaaro mō te Iwi, kōrua ko Tā Eruera Tirikātene. Haere atu ki te Pō, ki te Pō nui, te Pō roa, te Pō tē kitea, kia whiti atu ki te Pō uriuri, te Pō kerekere, te Pō tuangahuru, te Pō e whakaau ai te moe. Haere, haere, haere! He mihi ki tō hoa wahine me te whānau Noho mai, e hine, i roto i te pōuri me tā kōrua whānau. Kua iri te kaitaka o ngā rangatira ki a koe i te rā nei. ‘Whakarua i te hau e taea te karo; whakarua i te mate tē taea te karo.’ —Hōne P. H. Tukariri The bloom of the rata is shed, its leaves withered and its trunk dry and lifeless; its lifeblood has drained away through the root to the body of Mother Earth from which it sprang. Depart, Tipene, pass on to that Other World to be with your ancestors and those of our people who have gone before, along the path that chiefs, kings and leaders all must tread. Farewell, farewell. The branches of the sheltering totara of the Great Forest of Tane are broken. The lofty mountains that were, are levelled to the dust. Depart, dear friend, from the strivings and the labours for your people that you shared with Sir Eruera Tirikatene. Pass on to the Po. the Great Unknown of our ancestors, the long the unseen Po, and on to the dark Po, the Po of intense blackness, the ever-changing Po. and so to the ultimate Po, there to find deep sleep and rest. Farewell, farewell, farewell. My sympathy goes out to your wife and family. Our sympathy goes out to you, his wife, and to your children. Today, the mantle of responsibility rests upon your shoulders. ‘From nature's storms one may find shelter; from the storms of life there is no shelter.’