Maori Blood in Excelsis

New Zealand Tablet, 22 July 1909, Page 1129

Maori Blood in Excelsis

In New Zealand we draw a sharp color-line at yellow and penalise both Jap and Mongol with a heavy poll-tax. Happily, we have no color-line as against the big, handsome brown race upon whose ancient heritage we Caucasians ' sat down.' Every office stands open to the Maori that has grit and industry enough to win it. And it is a happy presage of the future relations of Maori and pakeha that, in the absence of the Prime Minister, the political destiny of this Dominion is in the guidance of one (the Hon. James Carroll) in whose veins runs the blood of +he tribesmen who formerly ruled New Zealand. The Acting Prime Minister made a pathetic reference to this when entertained at a social and treated to a presentation at the Trentham Club the other day. He is reported to have ' expressed the belief that he was the first man sprung from the original holders of the soil who, in any part of the British Dominions, had attained such an honor, and went on to plead forcibly for a chance for the Maoris to show what they could do in working out their destiny side ' y side with Europeans.'