YOUTH MOVEMENT AMONG MAORIS URGED BY BISHOP

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22951, 20 May 1949, Page 6

YOUTH MOVEMENT AMONG MAORIS URGED BY BISHOP

Crime amongst Maoris, a subject to which attention was directed by the Chief Justice. Sir Humphrey O'Leary, in the Supreme Court at Wellington recently, was referred to by the Bishop of Aotearoa, the Right Rev. F. A. Bennett, at a service at the NgatiPoneke Hall, Wellington, on Sunday,

He said that 25 per cent, of the inmates of gaols were Maoris, whereas the Maori people constituted only 6 per cent, of the population. This was four times too many, and as a measure to remedy the situation, he suggested the inauguration of a youth movement on the lines of the Young Maori Party, established early in the century.

Characterising the position as disgraceful. Bishop Bennett said the Maoris should be grateful to the Chief Justice for bringing it out into the daylight. He had not indicted the whole race, but only an irresponsible section.

It was obvious, his Lordship continued, that the least educated section of the race were responsible, and the urge to remedy the alarming situation must come from, the Maoris themselves.

The task was not one alone for the churches. The weight and authority of the Maori Affairs Department should be available to stem the tide. Greater care should be exercised by Maori youth in its association with pakehas. as there was a tendency to mix with those who did not have the best interests of the race at heart. Bishop Bennett considered the lifting of the liquor restrictions among the Maori people, which he believed had been done at the request of Maori ex-servicemen, to be a mistake.

“It is like putting an atomic bomb in the hands of the young people,” he said-