of living recedes, other needs of the minority people begin to emerge. At home we are witnesses to the new and intense demands for the needs which are beyond the basic ones of food and of clothing, and of shelter, upon which the main acts of discrimination used once to be based. “Today, perhaps the greatest social phenomena in the Maori world are in his deep sense of self-awareness and his increasing need for more opportunities toward self-determination; his own localised self-identity, such as the Maori Battalion had within the armed forces in World War II, or a Maori sports team enjoys within the national sporting structure; freedom to exercise even more his right for self-expression; and particularly toward the growth in his own self-esteem. “On the New Zealand multi-race scene I would not presume to say anything which might apply to any group other than the Maori of whom I am a part, and within that context may I say that if the Maori people are to enrich the life of both city and the nation, then the contribution a Maori makes must come largely from his own indigenous roots. As a person or as a group he can never in the long run make a truly distinctive contribution simply as an academically-produced Maori prototype of the western man — to be effective as a New Zealander he must first of all be worthwhile as a Maori. “Our short history seems to indicate that the periods when the Maori made his most outstanding contributions to the life of the nation were times when his self-awareness as a Maori was at its keenest. “Such periods were marked by the rise of the Young Maori Party which produced men like Buck, Ngata, Pomare and Bennett, three of them in their time knighted by their monarch, and the fourth made a Bishop by his church. “Another period was during World War II when the Maori became an integral and an extremely effective part of the nation's war effort because he was able to take his own place and role in the nation's soldiering through his own Maori unit. “Today I would say that the greatest single contributor to good race relations in the country is Te Arikinui Te Atairangikaahu, in recognition of which she has been made a Dame of the Empire, been given the Freedom of two of our cities and is an honoured guest wherever she goes. She has been the gracious host in her Maori setting to Her Majesty the Queen, as well as to other royal families and distinguished guests of our country, and always acting out this role from the background of her Maoritanga on the sacred ground of her marae, where she is not supported by the state, not by an institution nor by a church, but by her people, who see in her both an extension of themselves and the image of their ancestors. Yet despite the treatment of history, she has become the greatest bridge-builder in our multi-racial nation only because she has come to represent all that is best in the Maori-ness of the Maori people. “If therefore New Zealand is to have a stable national life for her multi-racial components, then both city and state must produce structures and resources flexible enough in which plural societies can exist as equal partners together, in common acceptance of each other and in the concerns of mutuality — but before this can happen, those with power must give assurances never to use their power to the disadvantage of any of their ethnic satellite groups. “All around us in the city we see the great cultural centres of the Pakeha side of us — the theatres, the art galleries, the cathedral, the museum, the carillon tower, the sports fields and others in which we all share, and for which we are all, in part, responsible. Our effort today, and indeed as it has been during the whole period of this appeal, is to establish a cultural centre from the Maori side of us … a centre absolutely essential to maintain the cultural balance of the two peoples in the development of a distinctive ‘life style’ for the nation, so that at the cultural level at least every New Zealander has the chance of becoming, even now, part Maori and part Pakeha.”