Colonel Bennett’s Post “A Lead To The World”

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28766, 11 December 1958, Page 10

Colonel Bennett’s Post “A Lead To The World”

New Zealand is giving a lead to the world, and is setting a principle that can not fail to have an impact on world thought, said the newly-appointed High Commissioner to Malaya, Lieutenant-Colonel C. M. Bennett, on his arrival in Christchurch by air from Sydney yesterday. Colonel Bennett is the first member of the Maori race to be appointed to a diplomatic post overseas, and is probably the first non-European representative of a Western country diplomatically.

A Ghanian civil servant and university graduate, who was studying at Oxford University at the time of Colonel Bennett’s appointment, said to him: “We feel we also have a share in this appointment—it has a real meaning to us,” said Colonel Bennett. “The fact that New Zealand is the first country to make such an appointment indicates the happy race relationship? in this country,” he said. “New Zealand takes second place to no other country on this question, from the point of view of the Government policy towards the Maori people, from the point of view of the sympathy and goodwill of the European people to the Maoris, and from the progress the Maori people have made in the field of integration. “In my studies and travels overseas, I did not come across any country more progressive in this field than New Zealand. Asset to be Cultivated “This is the kind of natural asset that both races must cultivate—the Europeans by maintaining the background of goodwill and the Maori by gaining, by his own efforts, a worthwhile place in the new civilisation. "The Maori race is in the shallows now—l would like to see it go right out into the deeper waters of civilisation.”

This will not be Colonel Bennett’s first visit to Malaya. He paid a short visit there in 1954 as a member of the New Zealand party to El Alamein. “I have a sense of relationship, however,” said Colonel Bennett. “It has been proved the Southeast Asia area was the birthplace for the Polynesian peoples; so. in effect, I will be going to the spiritual home of the Maori people.” At Oxford. Colonel Bennett was reading social anthropology, on the bridging of the gap between two different cultures. He studied techniques which might be usefully applied here. “It is very difficult to adopt any system employed successfully by any other country, however; there are so many variables,” he said. “The concentration here Is on education, placement and housing—we could not uproot that and place it in another country as a solution.

“I am convinced that there is no universal solution. The things we emphasise here might not work in other countries.” Theories in Practice Colonel Bennett was called back to New Zealand before he had completed his work, but he hopes to finish it in Malaya, where he will see his theories being worked out in practice in a multi-racial society. Commenting on the recent race riots in England, Colonel Bennett said they were the action of a very small, unruly element. Colonel Bennett and his wife will fly to Wellington today. They will spend Christinas with his family in Rotorua, and expect to leave for Malaya towards the end of January.