"They Owned the Pacific."

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13685, 29 August 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

"They Owned the Pacific."

(By " Tuhunga," in the Auckland "Herald.") •

There was a living lesson for all who had the imagination'to see it in the meeting of the Arawas , ati Rotorua and the Fleet Party. "They owned tho Pacific at one time," said the Arawa chief of his ancestors.' And may it not be possible that in some future year a white man may similarly speak '■ of- us to triumphant intrudersV, "They once, owned the Pacific," said the Arawa chief of his ancestors, speaking in the face of the white men who own the Pacific now.

The Pacific is becoming another Mediterranean,, for steam and- electricity are shortening distances and populations, are increasing with the establishment of the more extensive political .organisations made e'asily possible by rapid transitAround it lie "Anglo-Saxon" States to the North-East and the South-West, Lat-in-Indian States to the. South/Eas"?, arid stupendous Turanian States to the NorthWest. Within the century California, Oregon, British. Columbia, Australia, and New Zealand have been racially invaded by the "Anglo-Saxons" and completely conquered. The "dago" ,is in .possession of the South American coast, and will have the South American continent as long as the United States, chooses to proect him and is.able to .protect him. We can count-.him out, for,he couldn't hold his continent for a generation by his own efforts. He could no more resist a modern invasion than he could, fly, and if the Washington Government . shrugged its shouldeis and left him~.taj.his fate he would bo very', .promptly ousted'.by the Germans on the Atlantic side and by: Asiatics on •the Pacific. For possession is only to the strong, and strength involves mental and physical energy, patriotism and. foresight.

Which brings ;us to .the . Maori claim to ancient ownership of this wide ocean, a claim ; approximately sound. It was I manner, of speaking their ancestors were traversing oceans while ours were hugging coasts,- though many a; Viking ■ crew on a .North Sea-, coast,must .have prayed to Thor. for the open 6ea. ; And these coast hugging Viking ancestors of-ours, common to; British and Americans, reached Iceland and Greenlandr and "Vineland" long before Columbus sailed West ;or the Maori came to New. Zealand. But that, doesn't matter., What, does , matter is that Vup there in the cold, dark,, North;, tip, there is the hard land by, the • "harder sea; •held there for centuries by 'by the stronger military organisations of Rome;the North European became what he is. The weakling died; the cowardly died; the lazy died. The strong and "the bold and the energetic bred and grew, until they swarmed. far and' wide over Europe, and with .the development, of : navigation swarmed far and wide oversea. Because we had acquired in untold 1 ages of hardship the great practical virtues we drove across th© : American continent, in spite of the amazing'heroism of the Red Indian, and have occupied New Zealand in spite of the unquestionable courage of the Maori. "They owned the Pacific," but they lost i<> to the- white man because he was a better man and so was entitled to' it. ' ."'.'"'

.We were entitled to, the.Pacific, -as is proved 1 by the little fact that we took it; and the old-time Maoris were entitled to the. Pacific is also proved by the little fact' that. they, took it. For land and ocean titles are as simple-as tlie four rules -, of arithmetic when you once con descend to realise that Mother Nature ever loves her . ablest-and .strongest; child 'and ' doesn't? know /primogeniture or .'"the law of entail from Sanscrit) epigram or >the Man in the'M'ooii.'And if any race stronger than we are comes along; then our titles are not worth the. ink they are writ--en;in doesn't make any difference whether; we ■ have'- fec-simple or a 999-year lease or: only a, 33-year, or ■ whether they are 'signed for Edward' VII or by the Government of the United ■'States.

To < hold a land and to '--possess it, whether that hind is .Old England or New Zealand, Europe or America, it is perenially necessary to he.the fittest of-the fib* the. ablest of the able, the strongest of the strong-. Not merely .-.-physical- courage nor merely intellectual' acutenees, nor merely moral excellence make.-'fitness, bub die mvstt ■'- practiaal . combination -of ; . all the great . physical and mental qualities. - A hero with a iftone; axe must; fall '■ before

the timid man with a. rille, because the rille represents ages upon ages of patient endeavouring; and the most compact (tribal organisation must break before the crash of tlio nation 'because'tho nation represents a. broader and more profound conception of human necessity. Modern naval and military equipments overwhelm antiquated and inferior forms,, and the inherent moralities which make for strength ever rise above the'-passing conventions which foster weakness. Civilisations which ignore the only title to. possession 'known to all humankind naturally and inevitably and inexorably fall before . the invading inarch of fitter and stronger men. " They onco owned nh» Pacific," these Maori ancestors, in which is the pathos of a great failure, the warning of a doom which must fall, on the pakeha. also unlets he is wis© enough in time—wise end ugh to dejvelop tiliei industries which make- a nation possible, wise enough to see that no child grows np in New Zealand stunted and warped in body and in mind 1 , by ill-feeding and ill-housing, ill-rearing, and ill-teaching, or by degenerate inheritance; wise enough to see that every-youth who comes to adult age is trained to defend his country, and to ma-ko good against the challenge of war our pakeha. possessions of the' Pacific.