TWO RACES IN N.Z.

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 25031, 13 November 1946, Page 5

TWO RACES IN N.Z.

AMERICAN STUDY OF RELATIONS PRAISE FOR LACK OF DISTINCTIONS (N-Z- Press Association—Copyright) .Hee 10 pm ) NEW YORK, Nov 12 In"a sensitively written and deeply rtl ders tanain *’ stor y O 1 hi & association Sth North Island Maoris during nis ’nn of duty in the South Pacific, a Sung United States Marine officer, ’retain John Lee Zimmerman, conthe manner in which Maoris and live together with the racial Setions of the southern part of the fnited States. Captain Zimmerman, Lhose book, “Where the People Sing—rreen Land of the Maoris has just published by Alfred A. Knopf, tecajne a close friend and admirer of while training to serve on taadalcanar He then went and spent • iong time in New Zealand after beJjg invalided from Guadalranar with ‘’Discussing relations between the chiles and Maoris. Captain Zimmerman says: “It is inevitable. I think that spectacle of such matter-of-fact, rtjostentatious inter-racial good feeling A Oi jd have caused me to think of the -jntrasting state of affairs in my own gantry The first and obvious contusion to which I came was that if och satisfactory conditions existed in - 3 e country, there was no good reason a comparable condition should not rtist in another •There were in New Zealand a dark j,ce and a white race. The latter outJ'lnnbered the former and controlled I --e country, and yet the two races ■rred in entire harmony If such a existed in New Zealand it could aist in my own land Since it has 1 not existed there, some faul* must lie j2 the white race of my own land—pme deeply buried lack of proper jjiderstanding of the minority negro referring to the fact that he found many American Southerners fraternising with the Maoris with every sign of enthusiastic enjoyment. Captain Zimmerman says: “The Maori is never separated entirely from his east for the very land on which he Jives is identified intimately with his history and that of his family His neighbours are his fellow tribesmen mdinore often than not his blood relatives. If by chance his neighbour is from another tribe the chances are that &r back in the history of eenerations he and that neighbour also may find a gnwnon ancestor “Of one piece with that realisation ef his past is his dependence upon it cd his curious sense of identification with it His most rigid rules of per--oial conduct are dictated by his repct for the reputation enjoyed by his acestors—a reputation for personal jfflour and bravery in battle and wissan. There, I think. Ires the reason for the great difference between Maori cd pakeha relations in New Zealand ad white and negro relations in the United States.

“Where the modern Maori lives on food terms with his past and looks on it with quiet pride, the -negro looks back only on a vague distant history of origin in a tend as alien to him as ‘o bis white fellow-countrymen. The negro also suffers under the tremendous psychological handicap of having been a slave.”

Air Passenger With Contraband Jewellery.—The Brazilian newspaper ‘Oglobo reports that the police have crested an aeroplane passenger possessing a large amount of contraband ewellery. The police suspect that the ®wels are those stolen from the Duchess of Windsor?- The Customs chief at Recife jewels, which were worth 25.000 dollars did not belong, to the Duke arjd Duchess of Windsor.—Rio de Janeiro. November IL