THE NEW ZEALANDER AT HOME.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5397, 2 June 1879, Page 3

THE NEW ZEALANDER AT HOME.

In- the London Daily News have lately appeared several able articles on New Zealand, which are said to be from the pen of Mr Edward Wakefield, M.H.R. for Geraldine. The articles, however, refer in somewhat contemptuous terms of the natives, and in the Daily News to March. 27th. we observe that the Rev. James Buller, the well-known Weßleyan missionary, has taken up the cudgels on behalf of the Maoris. He writes :— " The description which the writer gives of New Zealand and the prospects it offers to men of bone and sinew in not at all overdrawn. But when, at the close of his well-written letter, he refers to the " native population," he falls into the illogical error of drawing a general conclusion from a particular case. It seems that at Wellington he saw some of the worst specimens of the Maori people — who, by the way, are by no means the " large proportion " — and then jumps to the verdict that they are "a dirty, squalid, unimprovable, and intolerably ugly generation." I am sure that a better acquaintance with them would qualify his opinion, It is that unfair and contemptuous way in speaking of and dealing with a sensitive race which provokes their resentment, and has much to account for in producing that state of alienation which more than anything else doth " bar the way to improvement." If the present generation of the New Zealanders be compared with that of half a century ago, the most ample proof will be found of their wonderful improvement, while many of them suffer little or nothing in comparison with the average character of their Anglo-Saxon neighbors. They are certainly capable of rising to a high standard of civilisation, and both as producers and consumers they form no mean element in the general community.