COMIC OR TRAGIC?

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 511, 19 May 1909, Page 8

COMIC OR TRAGIC?

OUR WAYS OF NATIVE GOVERNMENT. (Ev 0. A. Yowc.) Because of curtain irregularities which were alleged to have own cm,..:.; f.I dining aud previous to tho u....!i0i., Eketone, a candidate a. Jic' msci Mauri election of a member iur tbu Western Maori District, eonght by petition to uua;--ite Government permanent member, HunajoKaihau. The gentlemen learned in law 1,.:y.0 seldom had a more amusing case unfolded hi a Court of Justice. Even the grave and reverend Judges of the Supreme Court had their risible faculties considerably exercised. A Maori Election: Really Cllbortlan. The evidence set forth the utter absurdity of a Maori Parliamentary election (which, by the way, • was estimated to have cost the country one thousand pounds). It also illustrated the peculiar machinery by which the Government can ensure the return of a candidate to support its Native land poKcy. To begin with, it appears that thore is no Maori.electoral roll; that no one .in any electorate can tell, within a thousand, how many voters there may be in any one district; that deputy returning officers cannot identify the electors at any voting station: that a Maori can travel by railway from Wellington to Auckland, and stop to vote at any township on the way; that although voting pnpers arc supplied they have never been need at any election, and Maori votes are received by ttio returning officers viva voce; that Maoris by ones, twos, or threes may swagger into a voting station calling out that tney come to vote tor so-and-so, and it is left to the honesty of the returning officers to record the votes as the voters desire;-that the returning officer may, or may not, be acquainted with the deputies he appoints, and the deputies may or may not know tie people who appear before them to record 'their votes. Could anywhere bo fonnd a. finer subject for, travesty or comic opera? Pure Farce: Education and Health. After nearly a hundred years of our civilisatiori .wo still have one law for the Maori and another law for the pakeha, and yet both races are by law British subjects. One hundred years of our civilisation, and yet .we have this travesty of a Maori election I There is no census nor election roll, and registration of births, deaths, and marriages are still optional in the case of Maoris. We have, a dual system of education" which is calculated to further segregate the race — a system which is of no practioal benefit and in which the truant officer is unknown, and a Health Department/ expensive and inefficient (because understaffed), under 'which the laws of sanitation and hygiene are ig-. nored, under which suspicious deaths provoke no inquiry, and notification of epidemic and contagious diseases is a matter of difficulty and delay. And thus, over all, is the paralysing hand of a Government which is quickly and surely crushing a fine Native race into inertia and decay. Melodrama i Tha Young Maori Party. Sometimes we hear of a Young Maori Party. These young men,aro all being educated at the expense of the State, but why do they not come forward to impart to their ;pooplo the knowledge they themselves have acquired at tho public and private schools, and by contact with tho pabona P So far not one of them has come forward as an independent Maori to champion his race: Can any-, one doubt that such a champion, if educated and clever, would be honoured by each political party, arid every section of'the community? But, no! they have been educated as servants of the present Government, and as servants they remain. : Doubtless they_ find it more profitable to hold to the political party in power, but, because of this, tho older Maori people will have none of them, and they have so far failed to reach the hearts of tho Maori people. Further, they have no land, and, therefore, no mana; other than..that which a Government appointment may confer, and so, as a party, until the present race of elder men and chiefs die out, their power and infloonoo will-he nil. • Tho greatest measuTo of justice which any •Government can convey to''the Maori is I 'to place him upon the same political footing as the pakeha, and so abolish the present farcioal, Parliamentary representation by four Maori-members. This will cause a great educational light to flow in upon the Maori's understanding, arid this extension of the franchise is so manifestly to the advantage also of tJio pakeha settler, that it is the greatest wonder that he is only now awakening to tho necessity of urging tho Government to tako immediate action in the matter. Sheer Tragedy: Our Penal and Land LawsIt may' be that a little paternal compulsion will bo necessary to push the Maori over the dividing line so as to emablo him to benefit under the samo law as the pakeha, hut better thisthan the acute state of fooling which' is growing in the King Country between tho pakeha settlor and the Maori land owner. Prevention is said to he better tJian punishment — certainly it is more humane — and surely it is a cruel and unjust thing to punish the Maori people (somewhat severely, too), under our criminal law, while yet they are permitted to exist in their communes,, and practise tho laws, manners, and customs under which they have.existed for ages. And this while yet in comparative'ignorance of the gravity of tha crime to tho pakeha mind, • to which they most conform, or the reason and object of:the puniahmentl ' And all the while they are prevonted by special Maori land laws from utilising their land, are segregated by special parliamentary representation, are debarred from representation on local boards, and exempt, from contributing towards tho public works, which, of course, they must havo the common use of. [In connection with the above, it will be remembered that the petition against tfie return of Mr. Henare Kaihan for the Western Maori electorate was recently dismissed hy the Court.] '