Two of My Neighbours

I have mentioned my neighbours who live on either side. As I face the sea, George Goldsmith lives in the house on the right and Willie Walker on the left. They are both good sheep-farmers and we all have spent a good portion of our lives at East Cape and we all like it despite its isolation. Because of its lack of access we don't travel about much, we don't often attend huis, tangis or sports meetings although we are all fond of sport. Willie Walker, during his life, made a name as a runner. Consequently, in accordance with a Maori point of view, we have fallen from grace by paying too page 129much attention to our stations and to making money. I don't know anything about making money, but, at the same time, with the high prices ruling for stock and wool, all sheepfarmers are doing well. Willie Walker worked very hard on his wife's land, and today he owns three other sheep-stations, two leasehold and one freehold. Two of his three stations belonged to pakehas. Three other Maoris in the Matakaoa County have each bought out a pakeha sheep-farmer, and two, two pakeha dairy-farmers.

Mr. and Mrs. Walker lost their youngest daughter, Elizabeth, on October 14th, 1949, and on the 21st of the same month, Willie Walker himself followed his beloved daughter.

Willie Walker has left behind him an example for the Maori people to follow. He lived for his home and his children and though he died suddenly, nothing was dislocated because of his death, for he had established his wife and family in their own comfortable home and on a prosperous sheepstation. No father could have done more. Each of his three surviving sons now has his own home and sheepstation.

Henry McClutchie has also done remarkably well. When he came to the Matakaoa County he left behind him all the ancestral lands he owned in the Waiapu Valley. Now he owns three farms and has built a fine place for himself in the Hicks Bay hinterland. Henry and his good wife, Annie, have worked very hard during their lifetime, so hard in fact, that they impaired their health. Annie died suddenly three months ago and Henry does not enjoy very good health.

I may, perhaps, also mention that other Maoris in the Matakaoa County are doing well as sheep-and dairy-farmers.

I am pleased to record the success and progress of Maori farmers for I consider them the salt of Maori society. They are the leaders of the Maori people and page 130are demonstrating that the life for the Maori is in the country where he has his own piece of land on which to build a home; where he can always have work; and where living is simple and healthy.

Despite the pleasure I derive from recording these successes I have mixed feeling about the future of the Maori people as a whole. I have no reason to be optimistic, there being every reason to be the opposite.

Since the law has been altered so that a Maori may take liquor to his home or anywhere else he likes, drinking has increased very much among the Maoris, particularly among men and youths. Very few Maori men do not drink or would decline to drink and they are treated as a class by themselves. Drinking among the Maoris in the past was bad enough; it will be a great deal worse in the future, for, whether the elders know it or not, by drinking in the home and before the eyes of the children, they are schooling the children to be the drinkers of the future. I have always taken up an uncompromising attitude to drink, for its evil results far outweigh its advantages, and I always think of the children. Probably, if I took drink it would not do me much harm—nor, for that matter, would it do me any good—but I dread to think that my example may lead my own children and grand-children, or even other people's children, to start a habit which has led thousands of men and women down the road to perdition. "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!"

A fondness for excitement is a weakness in Maori character. Maoris seek excitement in huis, tangis, races, sports, parties and the Talkies. Excitement is his chief page 131reason for drinking for the average Maori home is so dull that its occupants are only too glad for some excuse to get out of it.