Reference To Race

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31519, 6 November 1967, Page 15

Reference To Race

“There Is an attitude among us all to treat those of another race as secondclass citizens,” the Rev. J. S. Murray, convener of the public questions committee, told the Presbyterian Assembly on Friday evening. One matter before the committee this year was the use of racial designation in newspaper headlines—reference to “a Dutchman, two Greeks, a Maori, an Islander, but never a Scotsman or a Southlander.” The situation of Fijian immigrant workers and of Islanders in Auckland .was another subject of study by the committee. The need for the European majority to be sensitive to the rightful place of Maori culture and customs in our society had been emphasised. “A people’s language is more than a means of communication; it is a symbol of a culture," said Mr Murray. “In our country it is not the Government that is at fault in the matter of race relations but the European population at large which mostly is complacent and uninterested in the place of minority groups in our midst, provided they don’t give us trouble but conform to our way of life,” said Mr Murray.