THE NATIVE PROBLEM.

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 178, 2 August 1909, Page 5

THE NATIVE PROBLEM.

By W. 8., Te Haiti.

"The Native Problem: What is H? Is there such a thing?" "*«»•"' 1 replied, "'here is. Also your further question: "Why?' may be answered in this wise": — _ Since the elevation of Nature study into a systematised Science, each division has adopted a student, who. in pursuit of th# s|tecial departments he has selected—let us say: botany—not consent to await at home the stray specimens brought it* by the casual observer, gets him a tent and out*camp accessories, and journeys into the wilderness: into the distant ranges, where neither sheep nor goat have intruded destruction: where Nature has planted her children to work out thetr destinies each in their kind, and sets up his residence: where he makes - friends with coarse fare and much discomfort, that be may lay bis ear t> the earth, and imbibe the meaning of its myriad pulsations; that he may be present when his subjects awake, when they take their noonday siesta, and close their organs at night: that he may copy their habitats, th >ir soil, their likes and dislikes, and note book in hand , tabulate, and compare, and classify, and make records, and blaze tracks, that when he returns, those who shall follow to extend bis researches, may find clear definitions and bases to work out a continuance, and not wander in mazes of vague empirics, and ted by fictitious indications, arrive at nowhere but inextricab»e confusion. Thus stands the matter today with our Native affliction. Who. t ask. among the selfstyled experts, has taken for his camp outfit a judical brain, and to at all hazards understand their point of view, gone into their midst, and lived their lives, and adopting their disabilities, their heredity and environment impregnated ideals, and entered the heart of their sorrows. Who, but visionaries, guaging the Maori view of things by thetr own race, taught preconceptions, have thus furnished, set out on a quest of reconstructing broken idols, broken traditions, broken customs and ethics, which once vitaltsed a race, and selecting the best, supplemented by our own utitised them for materials to build up the broken hearts who clamour at the door of our moralities for entrance, and are shoved away with the opprobriums of lazy, dirty, and inadmissible? Who, but benevolent enthusaists. gifted with kindly heart» and second hand information, have appraised the Maori as children, and in their application of children's food and education, failed—as fail they must, who would coddle and pap feed the vigorous barbar soul of a warrior.who, by Nature and ethics despise* the supine and invertebrate; buh admires the man of just but implacable courage; who knowing his own strength and what is beneficient to an opponent, dares enforce it with Justice and Mercy: who will say: "Stop! my way i* best; follow me, or I will compel you!" For the Maori never minced food for a foe: "Stand up and defend your rights: I intend to depose you J" And the roan who went under after heroic resistance was remembered with honour in legend and song. our annats record one instance where a benevoleat domination has been tried, and failed? Where we have taken the creature's hand, and encouraged him: "The whiteman. be he pauper, ass. or blackguard, can get money advanced him from a lending to settlers' fund, to assist hfs farm developments, come, I will extend the same to you"? Where we have permitted* him to sell bis surplus land in the dearest market, or by public auctino, or tender, ana taken fifteen shillings in the £of the cash received therefor, a->d forcibly paid it into a banking fund neither himself, nor we, can touch, unless solely and specifically applied for a house, for fencing goods, and farm requisties, on land reserved for his sustenance? Where we have called him FELLOW CITIZEN, and extending to him ALL the term implies, demanded of him ALL its responsibilities? Where we have clapped a clean whiteman's hani to his back and cried: "Good man! Better that." And waited his reply? Where we have taken our race prejudice by the scruff, and thrust it out of sight when we met the Maori? Where, recognising the wbiteman's ethic: that of all under the wardship of bis law, none have special immunities, and with indiscrimination applied it not otherwise? Where our leading Press has eschewed with utter horror, reminders, that his customs once were, to say the least of it, unendurable, and in all ways avoided their resurection, instead of sensuously rehashing them to feed their own degraded. and those of a like depraved clientele of readers' appetite? Where we make no distinction of table serein, when he enters our restaurants, and pays white current coin of the realm, equally with fine-clothed, OMvefc-attending teachers, and unconvicted thieves? Where our concern for his welfare has exceded that of our alacrity to know how much shoddy and refuse we can palm off on him for rash? Where we have uttered kindly words of comfort and encouragement as man to man, when he entered our labyrinthine orders: "Don't do this I make haste, do that E" Baa it ever entered the minds of shallow ramblers, who, when ••fced how the Maori can build a house, fence, plough and grass his land, cry. If Inspired by Hebraic revelation: "Let him find work on the roads, or felt hush, or (?)•" white settler has chances of sympathetic race friendships, assistance, and opportunities to borrow money, denied the Maori? And, further, that the Kttleearned on road and bushwork will no more than—and barely that —feed and clothe himself and family, than it will the unaided whiteman bis? Have these magicians of aeroplanic thought flights, ever stayed their aviations to ponder on, that the whiteman is a moving populatation? That when the borrowing fount is dry, and mortgage tanglee mesh him. so that every day of farther struggle means intolerable anguish, he can cut the net by selling out, and with the margin of the •ale begin again elsewhere: a release of which the Maori may not know: for he can neither loan nor sell; so he hutches on his heels, and listens, and the tinkle ef the wbiteman's gems of vMmb felte m apathetic ears!

It has probably never entered tbe palatial balls of their ricbly decorated fancy flights, tbat the Maori has the same sensations and emotions as the wbiteman; and tbat when be sees with what anxiety we desire bis land settled open, but refuse him terms which »'e his by British subject privilege and treaty covenant, tbat he is within hjs human prerogatives to sit open bis haunches and cynically enquire: Kia ahatia? (to what design?) And he dots this consistently. And when our Press makes no secret of educating cubic opinion into the belief tbat the Maori has no claim to land he is not in actual occupation of; and some of oar recently elected legislators publicly, shamelessly assert, that: "the Maori only occupied the seacoast—in patches—and the inland spaces were empty, and no man's land, and hence the property of those who shall take possession." They not only state a tbing that is false in fact, and immoral in ethics, but exculpate the Maori when be suddenly sits down and says; —"Trna, tangohia!" (dare then to take it t) And arouse in him a resentful obstruction it is not only policy but justice to avoid. When sentiments as become the public tone, who can expect ought else tbat the Maori shoutd despair, and revile the sublimely extolled wbiteman's honesty? As a prominent chief at Rotorua retorted: We can live and die, as our fathers lived and died: which should add to your aggrandisement? And it is not tbat these feelings should exist between two races under one flag; whose aspirations should be identical; nay, whose very prosperity demands unity of aim and harmony. Neither is it impossible of attainment; let those to whom the weal of their birthland is the primal purpose, consider the few but vital factors I have mentioned, whose substance I will here concisely enumerate:— 1. To take the Maori into our friendship and confidence. 2. To confer on him all prerogatives ourselves enjoy.

3. To quickly specialise each person's share, and Crown Grant it to him inalienably. 4. Any part above his own requirement, he shall sell by public competition in the open market, subject to our land laws. 5. Four fifths of the proceeds of such sale to be banked for a fund to build a house, buy stock, and fence and grass bis land. 6. To those who have no surplus land for sale the State shall advance a sum sufficient for those needs, to be repaid by instalments spread over a space which will not embarass the borrower, and yet recoup the State 7. All sales and leases, as now, to be validated by a Board, as now. 8. Until the Maori is a going concern, he shall be subject to the State's benevolent dictatorship. These are the fundamentals for a solution of the Native Problem; all others will fail of thetr intention.