MAORI PROBLEMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22584, 24 November 1936, Page 12

MAORI PROBLEMS

RACE CONSCIOUSNESS INCREASED POPULATION QUESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE The rapid increase in the Maori population, and the existence of a definite consciousness of race and colour among the Maori people, were two important facts stressed by the Hew G. i. Laurenson, assistant superintendent of the Maori mission work of the Methodist Church, when shaking to members of the Auckland liotar.v Club at their luncheon meeting yesterday. Mr. D. Henry presided. "The Maori people and their future provides one of the most important questions that could confront New Zealanders," said Mr. Laurenson. "One serious tiling is the present tendency in Maori population. A very few years ago every competent .observer prophesied that there was a very short time for tho race to live. Tho Maori chiefs accepted the situation, folded their hands, and .sat back to watch the race die. Its numbers dwindled to 'IO,OOO, including a certain number of halfcastes and three-quarter-castes living as Maoris. Then the tide turned, and a rapid change took place. The last census returns will show us that the Maori population, including these half and three-quarter castes, is going to be registered at over 82,000." Mr. Laurenson said the Maori race was the only organised primitive native race that had withstood contact with an overwhelming number of Europeans. In proportion to its numbers it was multiplying far more rapidly than the European population, in spite of the fact that the death rate was 2} times as great. The fact which demanded attention was that this increase in the Maori population was taking place very largely in Maori settlements with a Maori point of view, and Maori customs and traditions. "Lt is amazing—the line of cleavage that still exists between tho Maori and the European," said Air. Laurenson. "We pride ourselves with a sort of complacency that we have d<»alt successfully with the native problem. All we can honestly claim is that we have dealt with . the problem more happily than other countries, but to say we have dealt with it satisfactorily is far from the nunT. There exists in the mind of the Maori to-dav a very strong consciousness of being different from the pakcha. In some things it gives them a sense of pride in their difference, but in others it gives them a very definite inferiority complex." "There is a community in our Dominion to-day that is developing at such a rate that all interested in communities should lie concerned about it." said Mr. Laurenson. "1 believe tho whole future of some provinces in the Dominion depends on what the pakeha people do in a constructive and thoughtful way to help tho Maori race." •