MAORI MISSIONS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 306, 23 November 1934, Page 8

MAORI MISSIONS

THE METHODIST CHURCH. In his official report to the synods, Rev. R. Tahupotiki Haddon, senior superintendent of Methodist Maori Missions, makes some interesting comments. He states: “Almost all Europeans go to either one or other of two extremes in their view of the Maori. They either assume that the Maori can, as a race, in this generation, reach English standards in religion and ethics, or they go to the other extreme, and, despising the Maori, say that he cannot he lifted out of his ignorance, superstition, and nonmorality. The ■ Maori is one of the highest types of primitive people, and a potential equal even in European culture with the European, hut he has not yet attained, and in the very nature of things, cannot yet attain. But in the future he will-reaclia high standard if you render him, at this present most critical phase of his development, the assistance that is due as our child in the Christian faith. We have before us in our Maori mission an intensely interesting test of our ability as a Church to grapple successfully with one of the world’s most difficult problems, which has been created by the cruelly rapid change of environment and influx of European vices and superstitions superadded to our own. We are not dealing with a segregated race, nor with a decadeht people, but with a virile race which, though increasing in numbers, yet can have no future as a distinct race, and must inevitably merge with your own. In some districts the two races have already comingled to a surprising degree, and the present practical equality in educational advantages and . rights or citizenship cannot but assist that development. Many <of the educated natives and half-castes possess social gifts of a high order, and even your most exclusive social circles receive them as equals. These are the vanguard, the masses follow slowly, some very slowly indeed and painfully, but none the less surely. The Church must not be stampeded by any seeming immediate needs into any policy that does not lead towards our ultimate goal. “Many of the movements towards higher social and spiritual life are heavily handicapped and sometimes distinctly misdirected by the influence of European and American superstitions and false social standards. These influences make their impact upon the mind of the rising generation chiefly through pernicious literature and subtly demoralising pictures produced to supply the demand of a sex-crazed and excitement loving public. While co-op-erating heartily with those who aie seeking to minimise these evil influences, we are giving our best endeavours to constructive work, _ and if those whom God lias blessed with material goods would provide us with the cash for the purchase of larger stocks and equipment, we could satisfy the hunger for literature and pictures by supplying types of such that would gradually purify and strengthen the social and spiritual ideals of the Maori people. “All movements that tend to separate Maori and pakcha into separate camps are fundamentally wrong, and wise leaders will not favour them however tempting they may appear to men of short vision.”