MAORI RACE

Grey River Argus, 2 January 1942, Page 3

MAORI RACE

(INCREASE IN NUMBER. • PREDICTIONS FALSIFIED. AUCKLAND, Dec. 26. A prediction of the rapid disappearance of the Maori race, was published in the Bristol Times in 1860. The reference recalls a classic passage on this subject appearing m Hochstetter’s New Zealand, which was first published in 1863. According to the Bristol paper, the Maoris were to disappear in 50 years’ time. Hochstetter’s prediction, if somewhat less gloomy, was more precise and scientific. Quoting from “Observations on the State of the ,-Aboriginal Inhabitants of New Zealand by F. D. Denton (Auckland, 1859),” then the latest official document, Hochstetter said the approaching time when the native population would have altogether vanished from the face of the earth was -calculated from their then rate of decrease. The decrease of the population, as far as it could then be ascertained, amo.unted within the past 14 or 15 years to 19 and 20 per cent. “Should the decrease continue at this rate,” continues Dr. Hochstetter, “th’an the Maori population will number in the year 1872 only 45,164; in 1886, 36,363; in 1900, 29,325; 'in 1914, 23,630; in 1928, 19,041; in 1942, 15,343; and in 1956, 12,364; and we come to the conclusion that, about the year 2000, the native race ■ will have quite died out, while the European population at the present rate of increase will have risen from 84,000 inhabitants in 1860 to half a million in the year 2000.” Dr. Hochstetter’s comment is that “the Maoris themselves are fully aware of this, and look forward with a fatalistic resignation to the destiny of the final extinction of their race. They themselves say ‘As clover killed the fern and the European dog the Maori dog; as the Maori rat was destroyed by the pakeha rst, so our people also will be gradually supplanted and exterminated by the Europeans.’ ” In later editions, Hochstetter added a footnote stating that “in consequence of the most bloody war of the last years this proportion has become much less favourable for the Maoris, while the European population of the South Island was increased by immigration in a proportion quite unexpected, in consequence of the gold discoveries.” In sharp contradiction of thqse prophecies, the decline in the number of Maoris ceased about 1901, and since then they , have continued to increase until the estimate for 1940 was over 90,000. From 1926 to 1936, the Maori population increased by 29.30 p'er cent and the European by 10.93 per cent.