PLEA FOR PATIENCE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 76, 31 March 1945, Page 7

PLEA FOR PATIENCE

WITH YOUNG MAORI

REHABILITATION PROBLEM

"Any personal problem has two sides to it, and to speak of 'a Maori problem' infers a sense of superior- ,, ity on the part of the pakeha. The Maori is extremely sensitive to it," said the Rev. G. I. Laurenson, general superintendent of the Methodist Home and Maori Missions, in an address to members of the Y.M.C.A. Optimists' Club. Mr. Laurenson issued a warning that New Zealand might have on its hands ". . .another lost generation if sympathetic and patient handling of the rehabilitation of Maori youth" was not forthcoming. The so-called Maori problem was really a mutual problem of learning to live together, understanding each other and helping each other, he said. Interpreting the outlook of the Maori people themselves he outlined the procedure at the recent Rotorua conference. There, although land claims and grievances, health, family benefits, rehabilitation and many other secular matters were discussed, every session commenced with prayer and a brief address from a religious leader. Not many European meetings commenced that way. It was an aspect of the Maori nature that he was religious and could not understand the Western difference between the secular and the sacred.

"Behind tne mind of the Maori you will always find a recognition of the spiritual nature of life," said Mr. Laurenson. "It is a great thing to build on, but, remember, the Maori community is as mixed a community as any other. There is no one more ashamed of the Maori who lets liis race down than the respectable Maori himself, and I was greatly impressed with the upthrust of a sense of leadership apparent at Rotorua. • "It is important to remember that the Maori race is passing through a stage of development at a time when many, factors have arisen to point to the discrepancies between Maori life and the western way of life, and the Maoris are very sensitive about them. For long years civilisation has been assuming an attitude of superiority over the Maori, who has reacted by getting what I suppose the psychologist would call an inferiority complex. This pillorying of the Maori race by the pakeha has had an effect which is a factor with, a most unsteadying influence. "No good purpose is served whatever by broadcasting the shortcomings of sections of the Maori people in the public Press. It merely has the effect of determining them to go their way and leave us to go ours. If you tell them of .their failings to their faces and suggest remedies they will take it from their friends. They cannot, however, understand why such criticisms should be broadcast about them. They are asking to~ be allowed to discipline their own communities and to stand on their own feet as men, with restrictions which discriminate between the two peoples taken away. The Maori says he has earned it. His boys have fought for it and died for it.

Aware of the Dangers "They are aware of the dangers and they are asking for a strengthening of their own hand; an encouragement of their own campaign to "discourage ■"■■undue" consumption/ of• liquor by Mabris arid to increase their sense ~<sf social and civic re-, sponsibility," said Mr. Laurenson. "Once the Maori serviceman put foot overseas he found he was- on- an equal footing with pakeha : soldiers: He fought for racial equality and self-determination. He found on his return, however, that the pakeha soldier could do certain things, but he could not do them.. That. is just a part of the tangled and difficult problem the Maori is facing day by day. The Maori looks around him and he sees that the judges of the Native Land Court and even the director of Maori education are pakehas. He. sees this all along the line, and he is asking for a bigger share in the direction of the native race." Maoris,had been permitted this in their war effort and recruiting through tribal committees. From ■within their own Maori life had come a rising sense of responsibility and self-confidence, and they were asking for some measure of continuity of this in the post-war years. Mr. Laurenson made a strong plea for patience with the young Maori during the early years after the war. For the first time in their history thousands of them had received opportunities never open to them before, but for the majority these were wartime appointments only. War needs had seen them absorbed into industry and many were filling jobs previously held by pakehas. "When we are tackling the problem of rehabilitating New Zealand servicemen," he concluded, "we should not lose sight of the fact that rehabilitation of the young Maori is a problem equally grave. We will have another lost generation on our hands in 10 to 15 years—a generation -that was given a start anq then had it taken away again—if we do not give it sympathetic, and patient handling."