AFTER 100 YEARS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 72, 21 September 1940, Page 19

AFTER 100 YEARS

THE MAORI PROBLEM

Although not one of the official Centennial publications, "The Maori People Today" is one of the most valuable of the many New Zealand books which have been issued in this, the Dominion's Centennial year. It is a general survey of the Maori problem published by the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs Jn con-, junction with the New Zealand Council for Educational .Research. Dr. I. L. G. Sutherland has edited the volume, which contains contributions from Sir Apirana T. Ngata, Dr. Peter H. Buck, Dr. E. Beaglehole, Dr. H. Belshaw, Mr. D. G. Ball, Mr. R. Duff, Mr. H. Miller, and Mr. H. B. Turbott. I The whole is a comprehensive and I authoritative symposium in which are surveyed various aspects of. Maori life. Land settlement, economic circumstances, tribal organisation, education, religion, arts and crafts, health, problems, etc., are all reviewed, and each of the contributors makes valuable constructive suggestions as to how the problems involved may ■ be tackled. Much of the material has not hitherto been available in print, and the value of the publication is enhanced by its maps and illustrations. ■_ ". Fifty years ago and even less it was the general belief that the Maori race was doomed to fairly speedy extinction. Everything seemed to point that way, but the reverse is proving; to be the case. "There is in New Zealand a widespread belief," writes Dr. Sutherland, "and it is one certainly cherished by the average white New Zealander that no native people has ever been so fairly treated by Europeans as has the Maori people. While this belief, if it were capable of proof, might indeed prove to be true, as usually held it is based on legend. If it is fully and frankly told, the story of the contact of Europeans with native peoples is much the same everywhere. What we have are so many varieties of what a leading anthropologist has termed 'the tragic mess which invariably results from the impact of white upon aboriginal culture.' It is true that the Maori people, unlike some others, has survived. It'is true that after being defeated in war and largely dispossessed, that after very naturally, bewildered and fatalistic, lapsing for a time into a bitter despair, the Maoris have in some degree renewed their life. But this survival and renewal proves, if carefully and honestly analysed, to be due very largely to their own qualities and their own efforts, rather than to any specially favourable mode of treatment. If they were treated more decently than some other peoples, it was largely because their own qualities demanded it, and if we are honest and just we will acknowledge this. The Maori renaissance, as it has been termed, while it is to the credit of all concerned, very largely came from within the race, and however we may be tempted to assume otherwise there should be a frank and generous acknowledgment of this fact. Pakeha self-congratulation on a wellearned result is not justified."

The part played by the Young Maori Party in the renaissance has frequent references made to it throughout the book, and full credit is also given to the pakeha assistance, especially in the matter of education and health services. In another hundred years' time Dr. Sutherland's and his collaborators' successors may have a very different tale.to tell. A.turning point in the history of the Maori race has been reached, and the future, although full of problems, is decidedly not without hope. "The Maori People Today," better than any other volume, will enable the pakeha of today to view that future in the right perspective.