MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Daily Times, 31 July 1936, Page 5

MAORI MEMORIES

(By J.H.S. for “The Daily Times.”) AN ELOQUENT APPEAL. How strange that the philosophies of Parliament to-day can in no way compare with those of a century ago. In 1841 the sole question for: New Zealand to solve was “How the two races would agree. ’ ’ Lord John Russell,- foreseeing this, sent out with the Charter of the Colony this eloquent appeal to Governor Hobson.

“Protect the Maori people from injustice, cruelty, and wrong: establish and maintain friendly relations with them: turn into useful channels their hitherto neglected capacities for labour: avoid every practice injurious to their health or the loss of their numbers:, educate the young, and diffuse among all the blessings of true Christianity. “Past experience compels us to look forward with anxiety to the all too probable defeat of these purposes by the sinister influence of passion, prejudice, and physical difficulty with which' we shall have to contend. It is. my duty and your own to-.'avoid yielding-to that despair of success which would assuredly render it impossible. “To rescue these Natives from the calamities of which the approach of civlised man to barbarous tribes, has been the almost universal herald, is our duty, too sacred and important to be neglected, despite the discouragements.”

The noble spirit of this eloquent appeal found small sympathy among some of the settlers, for there was but little community of feeling between the races. Unfortunately there were but few who did not conceal their contempt for brown-rkinned men who were once cannibals, claimed lands without title deeds, disfigured their faces for ornament, lived in dog kennels,, ate putrid fish and fern root, and had no literature.

A white boy died of a spear wound and the general opinion was that he had stolen' Maori potatoes, of which, however, there was no evidence. In August, 1841, the Maori Chiefs asked Governor Hobson to protect them against the unfair demands of the N.Z. Company Is settlers. .. . . - The Maori village at Te Aro Avas burned and the white men were openly accused of it. The Maoris pulled down houses erected on disputed land, but singular to relate no property was destroyed or taken away by them.