MAORI REPLY TO MODERN LIFE

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33933, 28 August 1975, Page 19

MAORI REPLY TO MODERN LIFE

Maori people can show 3 their fellow New Zea- ( landers that it is better ' to relax and share love, , human warmth, and con- j cern for each other 1 rather than live the lie , modern man often lives. , This was the message of J Mr J. Karetai. who delivered ithe second W. S. Baverstock Lecture on the Maori culture j 1 to a meeting of the Associ-j' ation of Friends of the Can-; 1 terbury Museum, in the)' ‘ museum lecture theatre onl 1 I Tuesday evening. Mr karetai, who lives atp Little River, is the chairman! ' of the Chatham and South S . Island Maori Council and a! member of the New Zealand' 1 Maori Council.

PACE TOO HARD The lie that modern man! lived was that, hard-driving,: cold-blooded ruthlessness ini achieving materialistic pos-■ v sessions and higher social '•standing was well worth the • effort, if all it cost was an alarming increase in nervous j • 'tension and mental pressure.! "Too many of our New| [ Zealand people cannot stand j ' the pace.” Mr Karetai said, i “I am not claiming that the i Maori is the only person with I love in his heart for his fel- , low men: it is a particular j characteristic by which the

Maori generally is identified.”: Maori people would con-, tinue to contribute in their | own way to the good of the nation, provided they were given freedom to exercise the principles of good Christian living, justice, and warm I human relationships in which they believed, said Mr Karetai. RESENTMENT Resentment would con-j tinue as long as the Gov-1 ernment statisticians kept' Telling the Maori people that: •they had three million acres' lof land left out of 66 million acres of land in New; ;Zealand, and bureaucrats and: : politicians kept saying that | i the Maori language had no place beside foreign languages. “The Maori must strive for ■ more involvement in the

shaping of this nation’s! future. The Maori has always been an integral, essential; part in the fabric of New; Zealand society.” said Mr! Karetai.