MAORI ENTERTAINERS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 118, 17 May 1909, Page 2

MAORI ENTERTAINERS.

SONG AND DANCE ARTISTS

jJFROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.]

WELLINGTON, Friday. It is to be hoped that the Government may yet step in and prohibit the project of sending thirty or forty of the Rotorua natives to New York, there to appear at a place of amusement called the Hippodrome. It is true that these natives are, so it is said, to travel under the special charge and superintendence of a Maori missioner, the Rev. Mr Bennett, but even this precaution does not, to-me, seem to warrant .the exhibition of a Maori "song and dance" troupe before a gaping Yankee crowd of music hall frequenters. Mr Bennett is a clever showman, and deserves credit for the worldly wisdom he displayed when he carted round* the country last year a troupe of Maori entertainers, who gave pox dances and sang native chants. I am told that no expert theatrical advance agent or touring manager even showed a greater keenness,than did the reverend gentleman in the business side of the tour. It fell to your correspondent's lot on one occasion to travel b<y the same train as the young Maori lads and lasses who formed the troupe, and the "side" put on by the performers and manager, the rudeness with which they behaved to pakeha lady passengers' who, for many miles, had to stand whilst the young artists and their pastor and master—and business manager—monopolised comfortable seats, were the subject of much, comment on the train.

What the Maoris should be encouraged to do is to get out into the paddocks and do some honest hard work for a living, instead of being encouraged to make themselves a show for tourists. The plain English of it is that the Maori—North Island and especially the Rotoru a variety—is far too much pampered, and coddled up. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land-r-native land—lies idle, and calls in vain for cultivation, and instead of running round the country making a

"show" of themselves for money these Maori entertainers would be far better occupied in hoeing spuds and knitting stockings. No good—save dollars for somebody—can come out of this music-hall venture which has been arranged, and even, at this late hour, the Government should step in and put a stop to it once and for all.