MAORI REVIVAL

Evening Post, Issue 51, 28 August 1935, Page 11

MAORI REVIVAL

WHITE MAN'S PLEA

PSYCHOLOGY PARAMOUNT

THE NGATA POLICY

''The Maori Situation," by Professor I. L. G. Sutherland, is described by the author in his preface as a "frankly occasional" pamphlet. It lays down that there are two races and two cultures in New Zealand, not antagonistic, or not necessarily antagonistic. "Maori economic life will no doubt more and more approximate to European economic life as the Maoris learn to master European methods of production, but Maori mental and social life will in many ways for long remain distinct. The Europeanisation of the Maori is often discussed as though it were something which should or should not happen. Actually it has been happening for more than a century and will inevitably go on happening presumably for another century." In the meanwhile the distinctness of Maori culture and race must be respected and allowed for. The. slowness of Europeanisation, and of the adaptation of the Maori to European economic life (or vice versa), may be judged by the statement that

"even now the attitude of the Maori to property is far from being identical with that of the white man." In fact, "it is fairly safe to say that Maoris will never fully accept European ideas regarding money." The author considers that the Native Affairs Commission placed undue emphasis on the question whether Maori communalism prevents the Maori from engaging* in "modern farming for profit," and asks: "Need the Maori be imbued as we are with the paramount importance of the economic .factor in life?"

This economic phase the author regards as subordinate to the cultural. Maori problems are "primarily, psychological." And most of his 123 pages is devoted to a study of Maori history ancient and modern, the modified Maori character produced thereby, and the need of preserving all that is best in this Maori character and culture— apart from balance-sheet questions'.

Sir Apirana -Ngata, of course, figures in "this book. He is quoted as saying, as long ago as 1897. that the failure, up tp that date, of the Young Maori Party, was that its l'eforming zeal had caused it to attempt the impossible. "It was sufficient for us," said the Ngata of 1897, "that our people were dirty, idle, drunken, and immoral; for we, would teach them how to become clean, industrious, sober, and virtuous. So we framed a constitution utterly impracticable, ' unsuited to the circumstances of Maori society. .: ." Experience teaches. | The author sketches Ngata and his co-operating Maori leaders as spending the intervening decades in developing methods not unsuited to Maori society . . . but at long last there came a clash not with the Maoris but with the Auditor-General and at least one of the white supervisors; "Very few Europeans can successfully supervise, or..' manage Maoris." Again, "ordinary departmental methods would never have sufficed to initiate" the Native land development schemes. "Thus so far as the financial irregularities themselves are concerned/while little or nothing can be said in justification, something can and should-be said in extenuation. . . . In more than one instance during his administration the Minister was 'let down' by dishonest men."

•• The authorV wonders whether the post-war settlement of ex-soldiers on the land could be made to reveal many more land purchases at over-values than the Native Affairs Commission found. "This, however, is not said to palliate the faults and dishonesty which did exist in the Native Department." . • \

Dr. Buck <Te Kangihiroa) is quoted on the Hawaiians, the Samoans, and the Maoris. He hits Professor Sutherland's nail right on:the head when he observes that, among the Polynesians, "the Maori race are the only branch that are struggling to maintain their individuality as a race and moulding European culture to suit then- requirements." The Maoris, as compared with other Polynesians, have the advantage of a temperate climate for this moulding operation. ■

Though it is mainly psychological and cultural and leaves economic questions unanswered, "The Maori Situation" is the most comprehensive up-to-the-minute publication available, and is a plea which all New Zealanders should read, especially as the rate of increase of the Maori population "is now somewhat greater than that of the white population." Professor Sutherland finds that the day of sympathy with-a dying remnant is done, and the day of co-operation with 'a virile, reviving race is at hand.