FAREWELL TO A MAORI ADMINISTRATOR by E. G. Schwimmer

Te Ao Hou, December 1957, Page 10

FAREWELL TO A MAORI ADMINISTRATOR by E. G. Schwimmer On 30 October, Tipi Tainui Ropiha, I.S.O., retired as Secretary for Maori Affairs. We tried to interview him so that we could record the story of his life for the benefit of our readers. Unfortunately, he was too evasive. On a few occasions he met our questions with some momentary deafness, then he put us off to another day, and finally we were told he saw no point in the idea; the fuss of writing about people when they were leaving was grossly overdone. He doubted whether before the eye of history his work would really amount to much. It was difficult to answer. When people say such things all they usually want is a violent denial and protestation that to the reporter, at any rate, their work appears immortal. Mr Ropiha was clearly the exception. He was sincere. And he sincerely hated to go over the striking episodes of his life and have them distorted by the glare of publicity. He is not an easy man to understand. There are few in whom both thought and feeling are developed to such a degree, for usually those who sense most deeply the inner life of other beings prefer to contemplate rather than act, while those who act most easily are usually least sensitive to the hurt of others, and do instinctively and quickly what must in any case be done. If a man of deep feeling has to take such decisions he does it slowly and painfully; it is always a wrench to cut off temporarily the relationships with those who have to be denied. I noticed soon that he was quite different from the other public servants in the office. He walked through corridors without apparent purpose; he had a different sense of what was important and what was trivial. One of the accountants told me with a tone of foreboding that he was something of a philosopher. Behind this sensitiveness, this hesitation, there was one of the most unusual and difficult careers in New Zealand. It has been said that his business ability was very remarkable, but what is perhaps more interesting is Mr Ropiha's important influence on the Maori people in a period of rapid culture change. This influence began, in a smaller way, right at the outset of his career.