COLONIAL MANAGEMENT.

28th Heavy News, Volume 2, Issue 2, 15 January 1943, Page 4

COLONIAL MANAGEMENT.

At the moment in Now Caledonia there is an interesting juxta-position. ofy aethods of dealing with the ’’colour question”, and a snort statement of the answerwithout any comment on the rights and wrongs of each may prevent serious mistakes. 7e shall discuss the American, the French, and the New Zealand methods of dealing :ith the problem, in that order. In America, the Negro population is about 20 /o ?f the whole. All the Negroes are descendants of slaves and, though emancipation las given than, their freedom, the white American still considers any mixture cf Negro and White blood with the gravest distrust. In fact, the American, particularly those coming.from the Southern States, retains a "Master aid Slave” attitude, it least mentally. The Negro, has to got off the'footpath for a ./kite mon;, in all respects the Negro belongs to a lower strata of human society but the icon legro still, theoretically,, has equal, rights with his white follow citizen. In the French Colonies the position is different in"that the native has no political rights and is a protege cf the government. . The usual method of employlent of native labour is through the local gendarme, who is a wind of policeman, lagistrato, guardian and friend. But < still the native is there for tno use- of the /kite man. Experience has shown the French colonist taut .he must repress the nativ Jo may not agree with this, but it is the lessen the Franc.-won -has, drawn from r-is experience in colonisation. z With the Maori, who- is a man mentally fitted to take his,, fall share in Government, the Pakeha has camo to a different conclusion; namely, tnat native blood is no stigma, and respect for a man with a different skin pigmentation is natural. Political power should bo shared with him and the highest pests are open to him. At one of the groat American Universities, the profcssci. of ethnology is Dr Peter Buck one of the finest Maoris over produced by that ‘proud race. Go remember, when dealing with natives, wo are in another country and .Now Zealand treatment of natives may raise very difficult problems "apres la guerre”.