MAORIS V. INDIANS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 815, 21 June 1879, Page 2

MAORIS V. INDIANS.

An American writes a long letter to the '.Neva Zealand Herald, chiefly devoted to a compariaou -of the Maoris with : the Indians, and the Pakeha-Maoris with what are known, in the h States as ' ' Squaw-men. " > .He says : — I think New Zealand should look to America for a precedent of behaviour towards f a dyingrput race. The Government should take All of the Maoti lands, ovee into their possession in trust, giving ample allowance to each tribe in the way of a [reservation ; proclaim illegal all land purchases made by white men of any. portion, of these reservations. ; The'Government commifca a Bin in purchasing land from the Natives and giving them the money. The following remarks from the same letter are also 'suggestive :— " If there is a grain of English fair play or consistency;* in Sir George Grey, why does not he devote his Heaven-directed talents in. suppressing, the liquor traffic amongst the Natives; 1. Bush Natives in New Zealand hold licenses to sell whisky I This, is what I call civilisation with a vengeance, and means volumes. In the eyes of Heaven, what would be the difference between , selling Hq\ior wholesale to aboriginals, or in sending a small-pox patient up to Parihaka. In America we chastise pretty severely aboriginals who murder our surveyors, but we do not sell them liquor. The white man who dares to sell Ifquor to a : Native ia punished with five years' imprisonment. The , fact came, under my immediate notice in Dakota, a short time ago. Boasted English fair' play will give a poor bush Native whisky? aad have him reeling drunk in" Shortland-street, as I observed on Saturday. Englishmen have of ten praised to me about their method in civilising aboriginals, as against the method pursued by Americans ; but al s * B • the more I see of your method, I think the leas of its humanity, and if I were a Maori, I would take a bullet jn preference to going down to that disease and death tli at are snre to overtake thenVby _ your Pakeha-Maori and whisky civilisation." [A good deal of this is very true. But the writer is greatly mistaken in comparing our noble savage the Maori, to the North American Indian "Squawman " who is as inferior to the Maori as the Maori is to the "European. — Ed. Herald.] .