THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SITUATION OF HAURAKI MAORI AFTER COLONISATION

whole Auckland district, the 1906 report repeats what had often been noted earlier, that numbers of Australian and other job seekers were arriving and finding work in country occupations—bush felling, navvying, draining, and farm work (AJHR 1906 HID. This suggests that competition for work of this kind was fairly intense in the earlier loth century The numbers of job seekers were swelled in 1909 when the completion of the Main Trunk railway sent many into Auckland; they were sent on to the North Auckland line (AJHR 1909 HID. The labour market seems to have picked up in the next few years

(AJHR 1910, 1911, 1912 HID.

3.11 For most of the two decades beginning in 1893 there seems to have been a depressed labour market, brought about by shrinking job opportunities and a large pool of surplus labour swelled by the arrival of immigrants, especially from Australia. It was the practice of the Labour Department to send men from the cities to rural districts, especially newly-opened ones where there were more job opportunities on road works, bush clearing, fencing and grass sowing. It is likely that such work was more available in the developing dairy districts to the south in the Waikato region. The census data reported earlier strongly suggests that Maori also moved south in search of work. Certainly, the Miners' Union did not consider Thames to be suitable for the absorption of surplus labour. As soon as the Auckland Bureau of the Department of Labour was set up the union requested information from it about jobs for the unemployed of Thames (Thames Advertiser, 3o Jan 1893).

3.12 Two sources of employment will be examined in the remainder of this section, public works and gum digging. There is a reasonable amount of evidence about them; it is likely that they were of considerable importance and lasted through the period under consideration. But it should be added that casual and seasonal work on farms was also important in recently settled New Zealand districts at this time. No information on Maori involvement in this region has been found, but it was almost certainly available. In addition, there will be some discussion of Maori farming.

Public works

3.13 There is some reason to suspect that in relation to public works employment Maori were not, at least by the end of the century, treated on equal terms. Two items of evidence from the 189os point in this direction. In 1893 the Thames Advertiser (4 Feb 1893) found it newsworthy to report that the contractors for the Rotorua railway had been 'obliged' to employ a hundred Maori workers, thanks to the shortage of 'good men' in the district and added that Maori had in fact been found as efficient as Europeans. That it was a general view that Maori were not 'good men' for such employment is also suggested by the events associated with the epidemic at Manaia in 1898. Though the local teacher, C.A. Walter, found road work for some Maori, this would have been to the surprise of both the Under-Secretary for Education and the magistrate at Thames, who believed such work to be reserved for Pakeha (see below, para. 5.35).

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