Native Races Need Not Die by PETER H. BUCK There is an old prophecy credited to a Maori seer who foretold coming events before white people arrived in New Zealand. ‘Behind the tattooed face,’ it runs, ‘a stranger stands who will inherit this land; he is white.’ If the pessimists who consigned the Maori to early extinction could come back to life, they would receive a great shock. The Maori population, which sank to an estimated 37,520 in 1871, has steadily risen until now it is reaching 90,000. The birth rate is four times as great as that of the white New Zealanders, and though the death rate is twice as high, the Maori rate of increase is still greater than that of the whites. There is little doubt that with steadily increasing knowledge in health matters, balanced diet and improved housing, the death rate will be decreased materially and the rate of increase correspondingly augmented. The psychology of the present generation is entirely changed from that of their ancestors in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The fear of extinction has passed with the tattooed men of old and their white contemporaries. The final word ma in the ancient Maori prophecy quoted is capable of being translated as ‘clean’ as well as ‘white’. The prophecy in the light of recent history may be rephrased as follows, ‘Behind the tattooed face, another stands who will live on in this land; his face is untattooed.’ Tattooing has been long abandoned, and the face of the Maori of to-day is as clean as that of his white neighbour. The problem to-day is not to smooth down the dying pillow of the Maori but to provide the steadily increasing population with adequate opportunities for living in order to justify the ideals that civilization has claimed for itself. The claim that civilization has had a lethal effect upon native races is unfortunately true in a number of instances. The extinction of the Tasmanians was accelerated by treating them as animals and shooting them like game. The Australian aboriginal has disappeared in many parts of Australia, and the remnants subsist best in areas that have no economic interest to the invading whites. However, the assumption of the law of extinction of native races has been disproved by the history of the Maori branch of the Polynesian people and other branches as well. The Samoans have been increasing steadily, and the problem that faces government administration is to encourage and help such natives to bring more of their lands into cultivation to provide for the future. It is evident from past history that native races have suffered severely for the century following western contact. Epidemics and venereal diseases were introduced and it took a number of generations before governments were educated enough to introduce preventive and protective measures and before native people could develop a certain amount of immunity, to lessen the death toll. The native cultures were disorganized and western peoples were too engrossed in commercial exploitation to bother about assisting the natives in making adjustments to the changed conditions. It is apparent that native peoples have gone steadily down hill after European contact until they reached the bottom. Some have disappeared, some still survive as remnants, but others after plumbing the depths are steadily on the up-grade. Those who have emerged from extinction owe the fact to their innate pertinacity and courage combined with good leadership by their chiefs. Government officials have had to abandon the policy of watching a native people die out and are forced by the change in public opinion to realize the state's responsibility in inaugurating active and sympathetic mea-