PAKEHA AND MAORI

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 189, 8 May 1931, Page 10

PAKEHA AND MAORI

Racial Problem Solved PRAISE FROM VISITOR Dominion Special Service. Auckland, May 6. “You people of New Zealand know how to solve racial problems,” said Mr. W. J. Grant, editor of the Rangoon “Times,” who is visiting Auckland. “I have just arrived from the Rotorua district, where I was sprayed by snorting geysers and watched the Maori people in their villages. “All those Maori's with whm I conversed, and they were many, commended the political fairness of New Zealand, and declared that they had no grievance. The past had been completely forgotten by them, and they mix with the white people on terms of the utmost friendliness and equality. “In Burma and India we have adopted different methods, and so far our dominance in these countries has been based on the social and political supremacy of Britain. Perhaps for a time that was necessary; but the time,has now come when a new formula must be found, and the Maori contentedness has suggested infinite possibilities to me. Britain has never been a tyrant, either in India or elsewhere, but it is doubtful if she has always been ready to look at political problems from fresh angles." Mr. Grant has been touring Australia and New Zealand in order to study the economic and political conditions prevailing in these countries. “The North Island,” he said, “is more go-ahead and has adopted modern methods much more extensively than the South. Its agrarian possibilities also are more attractive, and the spirit of exterprise is keenly welcomed in the North. The South is colder, slower and steadier, and, to my mind, the danger to the South is the lack of enterprise just as the danger of the North is too much. I cannot imagine the South Island losing its head over anything—not even the completion of the trunk railway to Nelson—but about the enthusiasm of the North I am not so confident.

“But in one thing, both South and North Island are one—loyalty of the truest type, and I love the New Zealanders for it."

Mr. Grant said he was deeply impressed by the scenic beauties of New Zealand, particularly the Buller Gorge and the Rotorua hot springs.