THE MAORI RACE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20107, 14 May 1935, Page 7

THE MAORI RACE

NEED FOR BETTER UNDERSTANDING * PROBLEMS DISCUSSED An eloquent appeal for a more sympathetic understanding of the problems confronting the Maori race was made by Mr Sholto Black, M.A., at yesterday’s meeting of the Timaru Rotary Club. Mr Black emphasised the responsibilities which the white man had incurred in his settlement of New Zealand, and urged that steps be taken for the Maori’s rehabilitation. Rotarian B. L. Blodorn was chairman for the day. Mr Black began his address by referring to the Treaty of Waitangi out of which, he said, two facts had come. They were that the Queen guaranteed her protection of the Maori and that she guaranteed the Maori his possessions and ancient rights. Those were two very different things, and unfortunately, most people interpreted the Treaty as a guarantee of possessions only, and forgot about the guarantee of protection of the Maori’s rights of Improvement and development. They did not pay sufficient attention to the things which were not material. The old Maoris lived in the past and thought of the days when they were a nation, which they were not now. The Maori was a person who lived with Nature, but who now, through the white man’s civilisation, was unable to do so. Simple Communal Life. Life for the Maori in the old days was simple and communal; there were no problems save those of dealing with the next-door neighbour and warfare. While he was not an advocate of war, said Mr Black, it had been the order of the day with the Maori and had kept him strong and virile. If the Maori wanted to make a canoe he had to work with the simple implements he possessed and had to work hard. He did not work continuously, as the whites did, but worked in spasms, and that was the reason why the Maori to-day was a good seasonal worker. There had been very little disease in New Zealand before the white man came, and most of the illnesses which were killing the Maori to-day had been brought to the country by the whites, so it would be seen that the present generation had some responsibility in the matter. The Maori had no syphillis, no influenza, no measles and the few illnesses which he suffered he knew how to cure by simple herbal treatment. “If by introducing those diseases we have undermined the Maori physically and also morally, are we not morally responsible to see that something is done to assist these people?” asked Mr Black, who emphasised the widespread effects of measles contracted when the tribes were gathered at one of their most popular rites, the tangi. New Ideas Adopted. Before the white man came the Maoris had lived in their communal pas, but with the coiriing of the whites they began to adopt new ideas and to use the white man’s implements. That made it easier for the Maori to gain his living, which was essentially bad for him. With the clearing of the bush, the sowing of grass seed, and fencing there was plenty of work to be done but now, suddenly, there was no bush-whacking, grass sowing or fencing to be done, and the things which the Maori had done to develop himself were gone. The result was that in places where the Maoris were plentiful there were cases almost amounting to starvation. It might be asked why did not the Maori go into the bush and catch birds for food as he did of yore, but he had forgotten how. Also the white man had taken away the bush and the birds were not there to catch. Trawlers had disturbed the fish, in spite of the fact that they were not supposed to operate within a three mile limit of the coast.

Educating the Maori. Mr Black said that a good deal of nonsense had been said about the education of the Maori. There was a well meant but false Idea that the Maori should be taught that he*was no longer a Maori. He was taught about 1066 and all that and not about his own Maori history. If a girl was taught handwork she was put to working with raffia instead of with flax, which would bring her into contact with her ancestors, and a boy was given a piece of plasticine to model instead of being given a graver with which to carve as his forefathers had done. In music the beautiful songs of the Maori were being lost to the coon songs of the American negro. Referring to the recent inquiry into the administration of Native affairs, Mr Black said that Sir Apirana Ngata may have been a bad book-keeper but he was a good patriot. Anyone who was an accurate book-keeper would not do any good for the Maori, for in dealing with him and his affairs it was impossible to be precise. Sir Apirana Ngata had found the people at the crossroads and faced with starvation. He had persuaded them to give up their lives as casual labourers and to go in for dairy work, and now on the East Coast of the North Island there were dairy factories owned by Maoris. It had been a difficult task, but because of their affection for Sir Apirana the Maoris had done it. If he had broken the law, and he (the speaker) was not saying he had, it had been because it was impossible to get the Maoris to keep books. Christianity Inadequate. Speaking of religion, Mr Black said that in the old days the Maori’s every day life had been pervaded by tapus. There were tapus for the fields, the bush and every walk of life, but when he had met Christianity through the white man he had found that, in many cases, religion was a thing which belonged to Sunday and special observances. Christianity did not pervade life as the tapus had done. Tapu had been killed and nothing had been found to replace it. The result was that the Maori was adrift, and that was one reason why Christianity had not gone as far with the Maori as it should have done. That was not the fault of the Christian teachers, who had been the Maori's best friend, but 1 the damage was done. In conclusion Mr Black said there were three alternatives ope-n to the white people in regard to their attitude to the Maori. They could do nothing and let the Maori take “pot luck,” as the Tasmanians had been allowed to do. The Maori was a better man than the Tasmanian and he might pull through, and if he did all the glory would be his and not the white man's. Secondly, there could be a merging of the races, but the colour bar militated against that. Thirdly, they could cultivate a sympathetic outlook to the Maori and hfe problems and take practical steps fer his rehabilitation. The Maori had seen pitch-forked into civilisation at a time when the world was revolving very fast and changed from a stone age savage to a member of a modern civilisation, and the task confronting kim had been far too great. “It is a task which requires all your sympathy as members of the predominant race,” concluded Mr Black.

On the motion of Mr A. M. Kilgour, the speaker vas accorded a vote of thanks.