Title: Settlers and Pioneers

Author: James Cowan

Publication details: Department of Internal Affairs, 1940, Wellington

Part of: The New Zealand Centennial Publications

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I can only pass those questions on to our wise men. As for the rest, my correspondent's countrymen are grappling now with the new conditions of life and labour and are beginning to make a success of it. But with all the new avenues opening up before them, and with all the new hope that increase in population should give them, there is the wistful look back on the less anxious and more spacious life. Therein our Maori friends are no different from the pakeha. It was ever thus. The earth was cleaner, the page 145peaches were bigger and sweeter. There was no detestable ragwort to turn the paddocks into deceptive fields of cloth of gold. There were fewer bills to pay. It may be that now and again a great depression visited even Maoridom—only they did not know it in those days.