The Star. THURSDAY, JULY 18, 1907..

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8984, 18 July 1907, Page 2

The Star. THURSDAY, JULY 18, 1907. .

» ■ - • ■ . - "" \ THE MAORI HACK • A conference of Native Sanitary I»- --. specters was heXd at Auckland last . week^ w^iicfi ought not to be destitute ; of goodiresults:: The object of the con- > ference was to exchange and consider ' opinions and suggestions as to the best , way to persuade our Maori fellow-sub-t jects to accommodate themselves to the > environment w.hich is the result of ira- • mediate neighbourhood to the pakeha. > It is the intention of the inspectors to [ inaugurate a new era of cleanliness among the Natives, and to embark > upon a mission for' improved sanitation. ' The inspectors are not pakehas, but ' Maoris, and according to Dr Mason, ! the Chief Health Officer, they have '. qualified for the work they have to do i by practical study of the methods in > use in European communities, and* in ' this direction their equipment has been ■ thorough. Dr Mason is of opinion that , the old Maori, living under the old . conditions, will disappear, and that a • new, or rather transformed, Maori will take his place, a Maori who has adopt- ' ed the social conditions of his pakeha [ neighbour, and thereby preserved him- . self from the extinction that would in--1 evitably be the lot of his race were it J to continue under the old social surr oundings. But the transformation \ must be complete. He must be -alto- > gether a pakeha in his way of living; > he cannot be a pakeha one day and a ■ Maori the next. Dr Mason was de- ; cidedly hopeful for the future of the \ Maori race, but Archdeacon Walsh waa far from sharing his optimism. The \ reverend gentleman addressed the con- > ference, and the Auckland "IStar" • gives the lugubrious title " The Pass--5 ing of the Maori " to the lecturette I the Archdeacon delivered. A residence i of over forty years in the colony had ' given the lecturer opportunity to study the racial characteristics and physical and moral capacity of the Maori, 1 and the result of that study was a convici tion that the Maori was gradually but • surely passing away. The early extinction of the Native race would be a matter of no great interval if the ' present rate of decay continued. It '„ is pleasing, after such a black prophecy as that of the Archdeacon, to f read the opinion of Dr Pomare, the Chief Native Health Officer. He had no idea that the Maori was doomed to extinction. The race would \ be absorbed by a commingling of Angloi Saxon and Maori blood, and the new , race would be the better for the union. The doctor delivered., himself of an oration in which he went back to very ' ancient history, to the point, he said, at which the two Aryan races diverged. ! He said that the race from which the . Anglo-Saxons sprang had had the good > luck to turn westward, being afraid of 1 the sea in those days. His ancestors, ' having no such ftar, turned eastward, j and travelled on until they arrived ta : people the sunny isles of the great i southern sea. • .-..— ■ : " You, ?i he continued, " had the good ' luck to come across the metal; we, by keeping eastward, were still in tbjr " stone age. Westward you met other • people, from whom you learned art* and^ sciences ; we met nought but inferior negroid races. Then it was tiiat when, in the years to come, we two 1 branches of the same race met again, you were possessed of all which cmlisa- > tion was able to lend you, whole we were • still a stone age people. The pmvUx 1 have been alowly arriving at their state for hundreds, aay, thousands of years. We have been brought into the hewe li<rht of civilisation almost at a , flash, and it naturally takes time for a people to adapt themselves to new surroundicgs>" „ * v It is certainly pleasant to read a speech ; like this, and it aud its author should [ strengthen the hope for the race. But > it is not pleasing to note what was said ■ in Parliament about the same time by ) the member for the Eastern Maori di«- --' trict. He said that nine-tenths of th« \ Maori children were nourished, or tempted to be nourished, on condensed • milk and Neave's Food. Evidently the > Maori mother is educating herself in ' pakeha lessons that she would do well ' to unlearn, and the inspectors will 6erv« \ the best interests, of the race if they i succeed in awakening her to a. sense of her duty in this matter. But the same 1 speaker struck a chord that will j»r ' upon the ear of every right-thinking [ man when he told the House of Eepresentatives that nine-tenths of the liquor 1 sold in the King Country to the Natives • was such as the people of Auckland would not drink. The whisky was large- ' ly adulterated with kerosene, and the ; ill-effects of the 6ly-grog shops were ' mostly due to the quality of the liquor sold. Here is a cancer in the social lif« of the Maori that requires the most ruthless extirpation, and as the speaker obtained his information from the ' police, it is to be hoped that thos« ' Europeans who engage in this diabolical | traffic will be reached early and dealt [ with so rigorously that one of the vrorti [ evils of pakeha civilisation, intensified 1 by the criminal cupidity of civilisation* ' scum, will be removed from the life of L the people whose race it is the duty of ,ey«rx Christian to labour to pvegexy^s