MAORI AND PAKEHA.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20456, 8 November 1934, Page 4

MAORI AND PAKEHA.

Harmony in the Future Assured. SIR APIRANA NGATA’S VIEWS. (“ Star ” Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, November 7. Future relationships between Maori and pakeha will not lack the harmony which has characterised them in the past, according to the concluding observations of Sir Apirana Ngata in his speech to the House to-day. “As to the future,” said the Minister, “we say that the whole of the schemes are for the benefit of the Maori people. The day of spoon feeding and Maori landlordism is past. We don’t want that to disappear and riot to replace it with something better, and we don’t want something the Maori people cannot hold on to. We have a proverb ‘Divorce the Maori from the land and you will make him a slave.’ We don’t want the Maori to drift into association with Chinese and Hindus.” Department Rule. “It is not the Ministers who rule New Zealand,” said Sir Apirana, “it is the heads of departments. I know that business is bossed about one-tenth by the Minister and nine-tenths by the department, yet it is direct action by the Minister that the Opposition is condemning. I don’t think any mortal in New Zealand could have bandied the Native problem except by tackling it face to face, going on to the field and making decisions on the spot. Perhaps I went too far and created the impression of lavish expenditure, although among my own people I have the reputation of being rather mean.” Parliament was supposed to be the supreme body, so it was well to remember that at present the Treasury was “digging its toes in.” “The future is all right,” Sir Apirana concluded. “The House need not worry about relations between the two races. We say in Maori. ‘The dispute is between two neighbours leaning on the wall between their houses.’ Let us have broadminded, sympathetic administration of Native affairs at points wherein individualities come into contact with Sir Apirana paid a tribute to the fairness of his successor in office, Mr Forbes.