SURVIVAL OF MAORIS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 106, 29 January 1935, Page 8

SURVIVAL OF MAORIS

Science Congress Address DUE TO OWN EFFORTS “Although the Maori race has survived its contact with Europeans, its survival is due largely to its own characteristics and to its own efforts rather than to any specially-favoured mode of treatment,” said Dr. I. L. G. Sutherland, of Victoria University College, Wellington, iu a paper, “Maori and European,” presented to the history section of the Science Congress in Melbourne. Coming to New Zealand from Central Polynesia, Dr. Sutherland added, die Maoris had already proved that they were strikingly adaptable before they had to face the task of adaptation to European civilisation. At first the Maoris eagerly received the useful white man and adopted his ways, but they were quick to see the threat to their national existence of organised settlement. Land sales were insisted upon, and war was the result. When the Maoris were finally defeated, wholesale confiscations occurred, and the tribes wore in a mood of utter defeat. The extinction of the race was for a long time predicted, and their numbers fell as low as 40,000. At present the Maori population was 73,000, although probably only half of that number was of full blood, and the natural rate of increase was larger tbau that of the European population. The Maoris would not be rapidly assimilated, as was often, stated. Their present renewal of life was largely the result of their own efforts through the re-emergence of leadership in the form of the Young Maori Party. One knew of no other instance of a native people, so largely dispossessed and destroyed, setting to .work to regenerate and to adjust itself to new demands. Maoris could not really be Europeans, and there was no good reason why they should try. There were two races in New Zealand, and there were likely to be two for some time to come. Good will toward the Maori was shown by the European majority, but there was need for more understanding.