MAORI AND PAKEHA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 9, 9 August 1946, Page 5

MAORI AND PAKEHA

A COMMON GOAL SIR APIRANA NGATA’S ADDRESS “It is both a pleasure and an honour to be able to take part in a function such as this which is being held to welcome home overseas servicemen of the district, both Maori and Pakeha.” With these words, did Sir Apirana Ngata open his address, when replying to the toast to The Guests, at the reception sponsored by the Waimana Patriotic Committee last Monday evening. The banquet, the last of its type to be held in Waimana was attended by some two hundred guests from all parts of the Eastern Bay, and far surpassed any such previous function.

In Ruatoria, continued Sir Apriana, it was the custom to welcome home Maori and Pakeha soldiers together. It was pleasant to find another such place where there was no distinction, and where all joined in the proceedings on an equal footing. “It has taken two wars for us to reach this stage. I sincerely trust that a third will not be. necessary for yet closer relations to be established,” he said. “We are looking to the men who returned from overseas to put into practice in New Zealand, the things they fought for. We are looking to them as the future leaders of the country.” United, the speaker continued, they had fought for an ideology—the British Empire, the finest thing on God’s earth. The pakeha races of the Empire probably had a much better conception of that ideology than any other portion of the human race. Tribute was therefore due to the members of the Maori race who, although not understanding as well as their Pakeha brethren, had stepped forward to fight, side by side, for those same ideals. The Maori Battalion, he said, was maintained entirely by voluntary enlistments right to the end of the war, although had the fighting lasted another twelve months, it- would have proved a difficult task. Here, continued Sir Apirana, indicating the room filled with people Maori and Pakeha alike, was a picture of a New Zealand to be. “I can see something of that vision of the future in this room tonight,” he said.

In the Maori population, he continued, New Zealand had an asset. The Maori people were an old fighting race. They had at last, found recognition and equality, brought about in no small measure by the Pakeha soldier who coming in contact with his Maroi brothers in the same uniforms overseas, came back to his homeland to tell the people that New Zealand did have a distinct* asset in the Maoris.

It was, he concluded, hard for the Maori to keep pace with his Pakeha brother, who regarded him as equal, but the Maori was doing his best, and he trusted that the ultimate goal would finally be achieved.