SETTLING A GRIEVANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 September 1930, Page 6

SETTLING A GRIEVANCE.

It was a fine tribute to the work of •the late Sir Maui Pomare which his fellow-countryman and political opponent, Sir Apirana Ngata, paid last week. He referred to Sir Maui’s work on behalf of the Maori race, and particularly for the tribes of Taranaki in regard to compensation for lands confiscated after the Maori Wars of seventy years ago. As is well known, the calmer judgment of later years has convinced the white population of New Zealand that injustices may have been inflicted when the unrest caused by the war was brought more or lees to a conclusion. On the Maori side there has been a grievance ever since, and on that of the pa/keha a growing desire to see that grievance removed. The result was a commission of inquiry set up by the Reform Government, which found that injustice had occurred and recommended an annual payment of £5OOO to the Maori tribes in Taranaki as compensation. for lands confiscated without just cause, and which it was impossible now to hand back to the tribes. Even this proposal has not altogether satisfied tho Maori viewpoint, and Sir Maui Pomare did excellent work in explaining to the Taranaki Maoris the reason that had led the commission to its recommendations and the magnanimity of the pakeha that made it possible for such recommendations to be made. It was for this service that the present Minister of Native Affairs paid tribute. It is the Britisher’s boast that in handling races of less complex civilisation than his own he has never failed to give justice and, indeed, to temper justice with mercy rather than to maintain it as an abstract virtue. In the history of the Empire, however, it will 'be difficult to find a parallel for the action of New Zealand in regard to the Maori. To review the decisions of 70 years ago in the hope of adjusting a possible injustice was a fine demonstration of the love of fair-play. It should awaken among the Maoris of to-day, as it did in the leader whose passing they mourned last week, appreciation of the pakeha’s desire to live in amity with the Maori and to work with him in the development of the country that has become the home of both races. The pakeha realises that there is room for the best characteristics of both races to flourish.