CHOICE COMMENDED

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 79, Issue 7146, 16 December 1949, Page 4

CHOICE COMMENDED

MINISTER OF MAORI AFFAIRS STATEMENT BY REV. A. J. SEAMER “The electors having decided upon a change,, I think Mr E. B. Corbett is the best possible choice as Minister of Maori Affairs,” said the Rev- A. J. Seamer, of Hamilton, who was for 20 years general superintendent of the Methodist Maori Mission in New Zealand. Mr Seamer said he wished to comment on criticism of Mr Corbett’s appointment. “Mr Corbett has the necessary background and the right temperament, and although he takes office when the Maori political situation is in rather an absurd position through their being persuaded to dabble unduly in party politics, I am sure he will soon have almost universal Maori co-operation,” said Mr Seamer. “As Sir Apirana Ngata once said in an address at Waitangi, ‘Party politics is a pakeha, not a Maori, game.’ It is a tragedy that to serve pakeha political ends the party spirit has been introduced and fostered among the Maoris until one elected Maori member had the audacity to say that he was not elected as a Maori representative but as a representative of his political party. “Mr Corbett, who knows more of Maori psychology and Maori problems than any of his predecessors from the time of Mr Coates knew when they individually took office, is the man for the hour and all men of goodwill of all parties should give him. a fair chance and not raise unworthily grave doubts. “Mr Corbett is a highly respected Christian personality among both Maori and pakeha in Taranaki,” said Mj" Seamer. “ Like Mr Coates, he received his early education in a semiMaori atmosphere and will be as natural in his Maori as in his pakeha associations. He will move wisely without effort in Maori circles and he knows enough ’ of the language to keep a check on interpreters, which I have often wished his predecessors could do.”