SIR MAUI POMARE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 305, 26 December 1928, Page 6

SIR MAUI POMARE.

DOCTOR WHO SAVED THE

MAORI-POLYNESIAN

(By J.C.)

The retirement from Ministerial life of the Hon. Sir Maui Pomare through the periodical right-about-turn in politics gives one an opportunity of totting up some estimate of this specially-gifted New Zealander's services to his race and to the country. The K.B.E. and C.M.G. he is entitled to write after his name are a pointer to the value set upon his war period work and to his efforts to raise the standard of life among the Maori-Polynesian people. He was not given the wide field of administration in Maori affairs that now opens out before Sir Apirana Ngata as Native Minister. Mr. Coates held the portfolio of Native Affairs, and Sir Maui sat in Cabinet with him as native member of the Executive and as Minister of the Cook Islands. Behind the scenes, however, Poniare's influence and advice in native matters weighed heavily with his chief, and the all-round improvement in the Maoris' political status and the important concessions—rights would be a more correct expression—won by the native people during the last few years are very largely due to the quiet, persistent campaign of the grandson of old Pomare, the Taranaki conquistador, on behalf of his race. Days of the Parihaka Raid. As a small boy—l think he was barely six— Maui Pomare was an eye witness of the Government armed invasion of Parihaka, Te Whiti's town, in 1881—it was a not inappropriate date, the fifth of November—and the scenes of those days were burned in upon his memory. The tyrannical treatment of the peace-preaching prophet and his followers, when the men and women were drafted apart in separate mobs like cattle, their prayer house demolished and a good deal of their property looted, make a shameful chapter in our history. It is almost incredible in these days to read that Te Whiti was kept in custody by the Government (or nearly two years, without trial, despite his repeated appeals to be tried in ai' court of law for his alleged offences against the Crown. But that was the way in the days of John Bryce and company. Little Maui Pomare used to narrate how he and the other barefooted Maori children were the only people who made any demonstration when John Bryce and his hfteen hundred armed men marched up to Parihaka. Some of the girls held a skipping rope across the path by which the advance guard were coming, and the children chanted a song; and later when the leaders sent food to the troops, by way of returning good for evil, Maui was given a loaf of bread to carry as bis contribution to the "tuku-kai." In after years he determined to set out on a crusade for Maori rights and the restoration or Maori lands, and now after more than forty years his efforts and those of his fellow crusaders are likely to bear fruit, for the commission "which the late Government set up has recommended a measure of justice at last to the all-but-landless tribes of Taranaki. Pioneer of Health for the Maori. But it w«is as an evangel of new life, of hygienic living as well as a revival of the olden industrious habits, that Maui Pomare will be remembered most. He was the scientific pioneer of health for the race, the first doctor of their own blood to preach from kainga to kainga the gospel of sanitation and the laws of phvsical well being from the stage of infancy onward. The story of how Maui Pomare came* to be a saviour of his people in their extremity, when the Maori was wavering, when the race* was regarded as doomed in the long run to disappear, deserves a record some day more full than can be attempted in this brief article. . Pomare, when at Te Aute College, determined to be a doctor to his people, and, assisted by a near relative, he went to the United States to graduate. Medicine and surgery were fascinating studies, and the science of bacteriology tremendously engrossed him. He bent all his energies to the task and graduated with honours. But, for all the assistance from his kinsfolk, it was a hard life for the lone Maori youth in expensive America. He gave lectures on the Maori race to help earn his keep, and many a time he went without a meal because he needed the money to buy a book. From Kainga to Kainga. When the young doctor, who had made a name as a brilliant student, returned to New Zealand the Government had just instituted a vigorous health campaign—Auckland at that time had a bad scare over the plague—and that Cleveland lovable Scot, the late Dr. J. M. Mason, of Wellington, had been appointed chief health officer. Dr. Pomare, then about twenty-five vears o!dj was gladly engaged by the Government to carry the gospel of health to the Maori, and with earnestness and enthusiasm he set about his big job. He was the first of his race in the field? and this fact created vast interest among the native people. This interest was not exactly a helpful interest in some districts, for the old conservative folk greatly disliked having their insanitary habits upset. * ° " But bit by bit Pomare won them over. He left not the smallest village unvisited, he made long bush journeys, he was the first doctor to penetrate the Urewera country and visit the lesser-known parts of the Upper Wanganui. He wore down opposition from the often suspicious people; he overcame official hindrances—for he was under the Native Department, which did not care a hang about native health, or, indeed, about much but purchasing native lands. His periodic reports to the Government in those days make peculiarly interesting reading to-day. They are an eloquent sociological as well as medical review of the condition of his people, covering that ten years' period, 1901-11. In the South Sea Islands. The South Pacific islands under New Zealand's flag were Poniare's next scene of work for the betterment of the native peoples. When he was first sent to.Rarotonga with instructions to cruise to see the islands of the Cook group and th-> outlying atolls he found the natives in the direst need of medical attention and of education in hygiene. He cruised from island to island in small schooners and got up as far as Penrhyn Island, our furthest-north coral atoll. There he inspected the lepers, who were segregated on a small reef island, and the photographs he brought back of those unfortunates, and the earnestness with which he urged the need for "elcanins up" the islands set going a health-for-the-Polvnesians campaign, with far-reaching effect, 'flint the islands are to-day almost free from leprosy, that all the sufferers have been concentrated at Makogai. in Fiji, aud tiiat patients are being restored to their homes cured and filled with new hope in life, and that our island populations generally are increasing by every census is a happy condition that had its beginning in Dr. Pomaiv.'s first Cook Islands cruise. He has had skilled and enthusiastic successors —Dr. Peter Buck for one,. Dr. Ellison for another, both of Maori blood—but it should always be remembered that Pomare was the Maori-Pol vnesiau pioneer. As Administrator. Of Sir Maui Poniare's administrative work in later years, in his capacity as Minister in charge of the Cook Islands and Nine and the outlyin« islands, much could be written. All that can be said in the compass of the present article is that he made a thorough success of the difficult job of conciliating and reconciling the white and native factions at Rarotonga and of putting » ro . duction and trade there on a more satisfactory footing than had been the case under any previous Administration.