THE MAORIS AND THE WAR.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9400, 9 April 1902, Page 4

THE MAORIS AND THE WAR.

+ WHAT THE PREMIER THINKS.

Reference was made at the Maori meeting at Papawai to the disappointment felt by the natives at not being allowed to fight for the Empire against the Boers in South Africa. Mr Wi Pere first broached the subject by asking the Premier when at Home to see the King and request him to let his Maori children have a run over to Africa. • Tell him, said Wi Pere, that if his Maori children are permitted to roam over Africa this trouble (the war) will not last very long. lam afraid 100 much humane consideration is shown towards the Boers ; they don't have the, same consideration for us. It is not a good- maxim, according to our old ancestors, to save up those who will afterwards eat you.

The Premier followed in the same strain, remarking that if General Kitchener had 5000 well-trained Maoris in South Africa to-morrow, and gave them their own way, untrammelled by those orders which, in his opinion; were a drawback to the forces operating in South Africa, and put them under Maori leaders, and tell them what they were wanted to do was to put down the Boers, he thought the Boers would soon go down. (Loud laughter.) With the Maoris, continued Mr Seddon, war was war, and fight was fight; they were nev»r afraid of hurting their enemies. There was too much of the kid-glove in South Africa, and they seemed to him to be afraid of hurting their enemies. The Maoris never allowed their enemy to trouble them again. He thought * there was too much leniency altogether. The refusal to allow the Maoris to fight in South Africa had caused heart-burnings among the natives, but when that, refusal was made the Imperial authorities had forgotten tlie Treaty of Waitangi. He should move in this matter when in England, and* ask", as their father, that his children should not again be treated in that way.