MAORI PAS.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16462, 4 March 1919, Page 7

MAORI PAS.

TO THE EDITOR QK "THX rBESS."

Sir, —There appeared in your issuo of Thursday last, a stnteirent ns made by a member of tho Canterbury Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, that there was an urgent necessity for cleaning up Maori pas, and also a quaint suggestion by a woman member of tho Board, tli.it a start should bo made in cleaning up "Maori mas." . Now, Sir, wo Maoris of Tuahiwi. Kaiapoi. resent such language, and think it is a slight on all ns Maoris, and most uncalled for, as during tho influenza epidemic our Maori pa was far cleaner than tlu major portion of Christehurch, and probably cleaner -than the woman interjeclor's home, as nearly nil tho Maoris in the Tuahiwi Maori pa wore down with the influenza, but not ono death occurred there, which, I think, speaks for itself. The Maori mas feel very much the slight cast iipon them. Looking on tho sad 6ide of things, it does seem hard that some of tho Maori mas, whoso sons havo bled and died on the battlefields of Gallipoli and Europe, for the liberty of "us all. should havo such unkind things said about them. : There aro mas and homes in Maori pas that would do credit to some Europeans, especially thoso pneumonic blouses ones. —Yours, etc., W. D. BARRETT. Tuahiwi, March Ist, 1919.