Future Of The Maori

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29004, 18 September 1959, Page 3

Future Of The Maori

Sir, —One of the most satisfactory features of the present public agitation is that it is serving to draw public attention to

the whole question of the present and future relationships of Maori and pakeha. The Maori should be assured that integration does not mean the annihilation of all that is distinctively Maori. It does not mean that the Maori must learn to be a pakeha. It does mean that the two cultures should ultimately blend into a harmony in which each race is enriched by the other. This process should be encouraged by the provision of greater facilities for the study of the Maori language and culture than are at present available in our schools and universities; but it should not be forced or unduly hastened. Is five generations a period adequate for the adjustment of the Maori to his overwhelmingly different situation? It took our forebears many centuries, not generations, to asssimilate the impact of the Romans, the Angles and Saxons, and the Normans. —Yours, etc., SYBIL WOODS. September 17, 1959.

Sir, —I must dispute my good friend Dr. Duff's statement that “in the main, the pakehas have dedicated themselves to the implied promise of the Treaty of Waitangi that the Maori and pakeha were equal in the law.” He cannot have used quite the right words, because he knows that (a' the promise was not implied, it was explicit: “All the lights and privileges of British citizenship.” and (b) only a small minority of pakehas care two hoots about the Maori, let alone “dedicating'’ themselves ’to the implementation of the Waitangi declaration.—Yours, etc.. JOHN STEWART. September 17, 1959.