A LEADER OF TWO RACES

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27309, 27 March 1954, Page 3

A LEADER OF TWO RACES

new biography of SIR MAUI POMARE Man ot Two Worlds. Sir Mani Po s* are - »y J - F - c »ay- A. H. and A. W. Reed. 161 pp. In 1858 the Maori population of New Zealand was estimated at 56,000, and by 1901 it had fallen to 45,000. At the first census (1936) after the death of Sir Maui Pomare it had risen to 75,000, and by 1951 it had reached

115,000. In a sense 70,000 Maoris are a living memorial to one of the greatest men of their race, and on any reckoning one of the greatest New Zealanders.

It would be exaggeration to attribute all the recovery of the Maori race to Sir Maui Pomare. Many other New Zealanders of both races shared m this achievement. But he had a peculiar and special part, which should never be forgotten, and, if Mr Cody s brief biography helps to keen oir Maui Pomare’s memory alive, it

will do a notable service, well warranting the support its author received from the Maori Purposes Fund Board. Sir Maui Pomare helped his people in two ways. First, as Mr Cody’s title suggests, he showed the Maoris that one of their number could be as successful in the halls of the European as he was on tribal maraes. Second, as the first Maori health officer he was able to guide the Maoris to better sanitation and living conditions. The practical help that he gave them as a doctor must have greatly increased his standing as an interpreter of a happier future.

Sir James Carroll was the first Maori to become a full Minister of the Crown in New Zealand, but he was a half-caste, for most of his long term in Parliament represented a European constituency, and was Minister ot Native Affairs. Sir Maui Pomare was more of d Maori and always represented a Maori constituency, but he had a wider contact with European culture, and in the Massey Government administered the’ portfolio of Health. Incidentally, he was the first old boy of the Christcliurch Boys’ High School to become a Cabinet Minister. Mr Cody relates the S’tory tha; Sir Maui Pomare wals to have gone to Christ’s College but preferred the brighter uniform of the High School cadets. Later Sir Maui Pomare went to that centre of Maori culture, Te Aute College, where he became one of the founders of what was to become the Young Maori Party, that remarkable group which led the renascence of the Maori people. Friends at Napier arranged for his admission to the Seventh Day Adventist Missionary College of Michigan, in the United States, and he graduated a doctor of medicine of Chicago. He travelled widely in North America and went To Europe as the personal physician of a wealthy American before he returned to New Zealand at the turn of the century to begin his great work. The land grievances of the Taranaki Maoris later led him to enter Parliament and begin the second phase of a remarkable career. He continued to serve the Maoris, not least by the distinction he won, but his resnonsibilities were now wider. He did much for the people of the Cook Islands, showed his active humanitarianism in work for the lepers of -Makogai, ahd did his best to prevent errors in the administration of Western Samoa. New Zealanders of both races benefited from his work as Minister of Health, notably in the great improvement of conditions in mental hospitals. Mr Cody’s book does justice to a man who, at least as much as any other, opened the door to equality between the two peoples of New Zealand. It is unfortunate that the book is* marred by occasional production errors. It is, for instance, a little irritating that a former Prime Minister should be indexed as “Sir Gordon Coates.”

PUBLIC FACES [From "A Spectator's Notebook” in the e * Spectator”, London} A pejorative reference in a Leftwing periodical to “the hard-faced men who now dominate the Administration in Washington” set me wondering what sort of faces people want their rulers to have. Hard-faced men are obviously not comme il faut, but soft-faced men would not be quite right either. We distrust good-looking politicians, and those whose features bear the hallmarks of nobility or asceticism we suspect of being priggish and aloof. We disapprove of humorous faces, whose owners clearly do not always take their responsibilities as they should, and though we are rather more favourably impressed by gloomy or anxious faces the margin is only a small one. We like kind faces, but an entire Cabinet suffused throughout with benignity would make us feci uneasy. There may, there must be, something wrong about being hardfaced, but, since there is much to be said against every possible alternative, what it really boils down to is that politicians ought not to have faces at aIL If this could be arranged one might feel differently about Dr. Dalton.

FOR YOUNG READERS

Wittr her great love of ponies, Lady Kitty Ritson has brought to life some delightful horse characters in TESSA AND SOME PONIES (Thomas Nelson, 248 pp.) which is a story of a little girl who was crazy about them, too. Tessa had an old pony of her own—a cunning, likeable little fellow—but she wanted to ride in the show ring and this was something quite beyond the humble Dusty. Then along came some rich neighbours and it was not long before Tessa’s dreams came true. Tessa’s father, a rather irritating, broken-down aristocrat who constantly bemoaned his lost fortunes, was a grand horseman, nevertheless, and trained his daughter and the neighbours’ pony to become champions. His instructions to Tessa provide much useful information for any young rider who reads this charming story. The book is generously illustrated by Leslie Atkinson with excellent drawings of ponies at work and at play. Seven and eight-year-olds, both boys and girls, will enjoy, and perhaps envy the latest exploits of John and Sheila Adventure, the Adventure Twins of a new colour strip book published by Sampson Low, Marston and Company, Ltd. In words which are easy to understand, and brightly coloured pictures, this book tells how the Adventure Twins encounter African pygmies and elephants, find a diamond mine, fly a helicopter to save an experimental jet fighter, capture a master spy, and foil the villainous plans of Canadian trappers and Tuareg tribesmen of the Sahara.