Decline of the Maori Race.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXXV, Issue 1929, 20 March 1905, Page 5

Decline of the Maori Race.

A • Herald' representative obtained valuable information concerning the decline of the Maori race, and the steps suggested to be taken to improve their condition, from Mr C. W. Grace, a teacher in the Pomoano School, one of tho most successful institutions in the colony, in connection with which the Government over 12 months ago started a village scheme, which is now threatened to be dropped. The natives have sent a pathetic letter to the Premier appealing to him to continue the scheme, saying: "We are dying fast, and want you to show us how to live and work, so that we may not all go down to the grave." Mr Grace says the proportion of deaths of natives and their suddenness is appalling, often only one or two in a family of ten children surviving ; and he says nothing else can be expected so long as newly-born infants are allowed to breathe poison in the wharepunis, void of ventilation and reeking with tobacco smoke, whilst large numbers of infants are annually taken away from their mothers and adopted by women ignorant of the need of cleanliness, of food, andjmrroundings. Mr Grace says had a portion of the money devoted to education been spent on bringing tho natives out of pahs and getting them to house themeelves in well-ventilated dwellings, to attend to pahs' cleanliness, and to be constant and intelligent toilers, more real good work would have been done. The land is the place for the Maori, and intelligent activity, wholesome Burroundings, and the ever-present knowledge that he is subject to a law that can reach and strike him are factors that alone will save him from rusting out.