Racial Intermarriage Increasing In N.Z.

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31586, 25 January 1968, Page 1

Racial Intermarriage Increasing In N.Z.

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, January 24. In a comparatively short time every European living in New Zealand would have Maori relatives, said the Secretary of Maori Affairs (Mr J. M. McEwen) in Auckland today.

Speaking at a refresher course for teachers with pupils facing language difficulties, Mr McEwen based his statement on the rising rate of intermarriage. There would also be an increasing tendency for descendants of present generations to have black hair and brown eyes, he said.

In a recent housing survey, 20,000 Maori families were interviewed. In the country areas 12 per cent had married Europeans, while in Palmerston North, the biggest urban area surveyed, the percentage was 35.3 per cent

"Wc think that in Wellington it would be well over 50 per cent,” Mr McEwen said. Now that thousands qf young Maoris were living in the cities they had more opportunity to meet and marry pakehas of their own age. Mr McEwen said he noticed at functions for Maori apprentices in Wellington that 80 per cent of them took pakeha girls. He urged that New Zealanders become more aware of their country’s role in the South Pacific. About one-third of a million New Zealanders had Polynesian ancestry and New Zealand should be looked upon as the capital of Polynesia, not as a group of islands off Europe or even off South-East Asia. Mr McEwan warned the approximately 100 teachers at the course against believing the job of educating Maoris was being well done. As he dealt with the end product of education, he was able to judge the results. “Why, every year, do we get a large bunch of dropouts and put them into apprentice training schemes where they do better than

the national average? They’re not dumb and they’re not unteachable,” he said. Maori children were still being taught on the assumption that they spoke English, but most spoke neither English nor Maori. Their language was a patois with a very limited vocabulary consisting of some English and perhaps some Australian put together in a Maori way. Mr McEwen added: “A lot of difficulties must be overcome, but let’s try to overcome them quickly. Don't let us go on wasting the talent of hundreds and hundreds of Maori children every year.”