MAORI, MORIORI, PAKEHA

Wanganui Chronicle, 30 November 1948, Page 2

MAORI, MORIORI, PAKEHA

Sir, — Your correspondent, Mr. Thomasen, speaks of th'e Maori having conquered the Moriori by force of arms. If the concensus of opinion on New Zealand’s early history is right, the Moriori was a peace-loving mortal who neither possessed any “arms” whatever, nor was capable of “fighting.” Not only was New Zealand “taken” from the Moriori, but the Moriori was also (after the manner of our Russian friends) liquidated There is io Moriori today left to possess one single acre of his former land. Th’e pakeha was different from these Maori conquerors, in that the pakeha did leave the Maori to possess his own skin and live his own life. The Maori race are possessed of many admirable qualities and have shown themselves worthy citizens of the present-day New Zealand, both in peace and war. The Hon. Mr. Tirikatene though, drags the good name of the Maori in the dust, when he attempted in the House to justify the immoral use of the Maori vote on the Land Sales Act Amendment, on the score of the treatment allegedly meted out to the Maori 100 years ago. Does the Maori toda? want the very moon? The Maori numbers one-eighteenth of* the total population, yet he owns the equivalent of one-quarter of the land held under freeholds in New Zealand today. On this basis the Maori, therefore, “owns” more than four times as much freehold land “per capita” than the pakeha.

While the whole Maori race sit “pretty” with their now “super-type” of freehold which is • above and beyond the scope of the Land Sales Act—a holding of land which is four times the per capita holding of the pakeha—they have the effrontery to use their voting power in the House to bolster up a far more mean “taking” of land, in that it is being done in an age of so-called democracy. Your correspondent speaks in terms of belittlement of the Treaty of Waitangi, whereas, in fact, it must stand out as the greatest Charter of Rights that has ever been presented to any native race. It has been used on innumerable occasions in litigations under which the Maori has been paid very large sums, e g., the bed of Lake Taupo. Only in the last few wefeks none other than Princess Tupea and descendants of leading chiefs who signed that Treaty have protested to the Government that the proposed referendum over alcoholic liquor in the King Country, is a violation of the Treaty of Waitangi. We can assume that Princess Tupea and King Koroki are in a position to evaluate the worth of the Treaty of Waitangi far more accurately than your correspondent. Mr. Thomasen has asked me for “proof” of the brutal treatment of the Moriori. Within the span of authentic European testimony, there was that “brutal” (in every sense of this word) visit of Rauparaha to the Chatham Islands, in the early part of last century. The fact that the Moriori on the mainland, was not even allowed to exist as a slave, is evidence that he. too, went the way of the Moriori at the hands of Rauparaha. If the Hon. Mr. Tirikatene were sincere in his advocacy of the policy of Socialism, he would be advocating that the Maori owned land of New Zealand should also be brought in to a nation-wide nationalisation of all land in New Zealand. He cannot be excused the humbug of attempting to have the Maori both capitalist and socialist and alternate between the two just whenever it suits the Maori to do so.—l am., etc., ft R. O. MONTGOMERIE, P. 8., Wanganui. November 27, 1948.