WANGANUI'S INTERIOR COUNTRY.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12718, 1 February 1906, Page 2

WANGANUI'S INTERIOR COUNTRY.

THE NATIVES

(BY "RIMU.")

(All Rights Reserved.).

The last paper depicted the historical steps or actual sequences by-which the Maori (having his own religion discredited and his customs disregarded) virtually lost faith in the new karikea, and confidence in the Queen's mana. Ho becomes part rebel and part new religionist, by setting up a visible mana in a "king," and a guide or tapu for his religious instincts m his own "prophetsJ^lWt as this new combination of manWpid tapu, king and prophet (which if* but a reflex or the lost order of things), does not work out into practice (the Pakeha intruder 'is too.strong, but is inconsistent), the Maori will appeal to the great, good, and just God of the Pakeha, ,aJKTso> the blood-stained weapon of ,Te Koti is beafcen into the plough share of Te Whiti. Put the plough share .in, and the great Atua"will restore the lost land, the country, all power will come back. Unfortunately for the poet, but providentially for the world (and much better it is so), the gorgeouskrufoes bl poetry are not the working garments to face life. There are fig leaf and fustian, cotton and corduroy, and apron of leather.. But be sure the seraphic idealisms of an Isaiah, reflected in the foam of a Te Whiti, or what you call the impracticable musings of the dreamer, are the realisations and the realisms of history and prosaic life. What battalions and battleships cannot do, the hoe of the field and the hum of the city will accomplish—the potentiality of the peasant, and not the policy of the prince, will bring the triumphant millenium. The rods of the magicians and the wands of the fairies are new in the hands of the toiler, and what soldier and sword and spear will never bring about, the lowly worker with spade and hammer and needle will accomplish. The picturesque and the mirage of ideas have their uses, for the heart-swelling music of . poetry expandeth the soul, which in turn moveth the will and the reason, else tjiaid man would never go forward and 'grasp his inheritance. Man in his leaders—the poets and propt?e£s— r is impatient (for present realisation) when the soul glows at white heat, and he always expecting the splendours of heaven to robe the poverty of earth. The prophets, poets, apostles, and saints of old expected it, end so do the poets and prophets and good people of modern times. The Almighty is, however, not a dispenser of supernal emblazonr\\ He worketh not in a field of gold, "and the miracle of the supernatural we are always looking for in the sky is taking place under our feet, and we know it not, so slow are we to understand..

No one who saw or heard Te Whiti m his palmy and powerful days could but fail to note that the man was grappling with a great message; he writhed in agony with the deliverances of counsels. He had the fire of a seer and the weighty majesty of an apostle oF the Most High. Like others/he was misnnedrstood ,and his own heart even read not .the vision correctly, and he applied what of truth he knew in a wrong way. The plough share and not fhe sword he knew was to be the salvation of the Maori. But the message he reversed. The land is to come back to the Maori, cried he; instead of commanding the Maori to go back to th© land. Return to labour on the land, "dress and keep" was the primal command to primitive man. This is the great fundamental law of human life, and race survival. It alone means health to the body, purity to the soul, and contentment to the heart and peace to the mind. Back to the land, is a philosophic truth and a scientific fact. People may disagree about the manner of getting back, but so long as 'hey hold fast this truth, methods are mere details.

The liberty of a British subject was suddenly thrown over the Maori. His people were only emerging from barbarism, or semi-savagedom. Surely it was as unwise as it was foolish and dangerous. -The freedom and liberty of a British subject , pre-suppcses intelligence, some self-restraint, the ability IJb form fair and-just opinions, and to be nblt to act with some wisdom at.U ui'lependoi^e, and witftj* a Sreaso u»bie aid" »:tic 01 control over the appe:: '«s. i!'j;:i<'s and passions, not to speaic of. cruUrn and prudence, and] as our JB u -ok of Common Prayer puts it, "with a right judgment in all things." He lest the supervision of his chief —the mana; he got away from the counsels and restraints of his priest andjjarent—the ariki; veneration fled.. There was no tapu, nothing sacred or awe-inspiring, to appeal to his imagination, or to restrain his passions and lusts—"the lust of the flesh and the pride of life" had no longer any punishment in store if he ran into riot and excess. Even if the weaker among them took to lying or thieving or such, there was no makutu to harm them. His gods had fled, his ancestors whom he used to invoke were now in—well, he didn't know where they were, and as for the Atua of the Pakcha, He had failed them also. Without prayer or aspiration and its subtle reflex, and with little or no work to do, his condition was pitiful in the extreme. With freedom and lack of restraint, no responsibility—loafing and laziness, relieved by spasms of work or sport— gradually, but surely, his circumference of humanity was sapped; his hardihood and constitution weakened; slowly he was disrobed of self-respect and pride of race and ancestral honour, so drooping and languishing he gradually sinks into a normal condition of stupor and drowseyness, being thus relieved of object and struggle, he has little real interest in life.

All this is illustrated in the xiic of the younger generation of natives, and The excessive average number of deaths among young men is matter of coin-mm comment.

Settlers and persons who have had to do with native workmen a"'l find that it is only here and there a a n<i reliable Maori "grafter" is to be got. Trese are noble exceptions, haul as rpils, and true as steel

Contracts for bushfellin %, ro-.d inakLig, track clearing, scrub cutting, and ftmcinp are in some cas^s throv/n up or left urfinished by natives, or they become so fitful and erratic (by ru^lnr.g off to tangis, meetings, races, or some such) that they have to be dismissed. A lad working alongside natives ren arked recently to the writer, "Why, the Maori has no stomach." A rude commentary, but a correct estimate of the present day lack of application, persistence, and staying power of tno native workmen.

- Go up the rivei-, citizen, and you there may behold wide, broad, and extensive areas of grass or pasture 'ands held by native owners, and in their own occupation, which a few years ago were well stocked with sheep, and in some cases cows; yet to-day you will only find a few scraggy ew>s, a dwindling held of cattle, or a /aob of not over-good horses. Had they but have exercised a very moderate amount of energy and management capacity, and each one having done his fair share of work, to-day their wool returns would have been handsome, and the inoomfeven from that staple might have rendered their owners ocmpai'ativeV independent.

_ Really something more must be done lor tho natives than the rather negative of "cutting up their lands and investing the purchase money m debentures, and let them live on the

interest.'' 'Tis a short road to decimate the Maori. Long experience and observation has taught the writer that the Maori must be mad© to live on and work his own land. We put this question some time ago to a hard-working, highly-intelligent native, and his answer was something like this: "Put the Maori butter between two slices of bread of the Pakeha, and make him eat, make him eat? No good the Maori by himself." He explained his meaning" thus: "Cut up the native lands into blocks, and put the Maori on sections each eandwiched by two Europeans. He will follow the Pakeha' 9 example and work. It will make him work! Don't give him money! The native is no good now-a-days if he lives with others of his own race as neighbours." Analyse this intelligent and obsei-ving native's answer, and you find it contains—Provide the Maori with food example, surround him with inusfcrious- neighbours jv and exercise a. frugal restraint over him.