WELFARE OF MAORI

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 35, 11 February 1933, Page 13

WELFARE OF MAORI

FOLLOWING THE PAKEHA

NEED FOR GOOD EXAMPLE

Some remarks regarding the present and future* of the Maori race were made by Bishop Bennett in an address at Waitara last Sunday. ;

If only the pakeha could go about things in the right way it would not bo necessary for the Maori clergy to do much, said the bishop. The influence and example of tlie pakeha was a wonderful thing to the Maoris. Therefore, the pakeha had a tremendous responsibility to face- so far as the Maori people wcro concerned, :

On Christmas Day,'lßl4,.when Samuel Marsden' preached his first sermon in New. Zealand, pakehas present had been surprised to see how well the Maoris present followed it. Later it was explained that their chief had watched his neighbour, and.from what he saw had signalled to his followers to stand up. or kneel kas might be appropriate., All through the years from that day,the bishop said, the Maoris had been following the pakehas. '' Where are you leading them? > * asked the speaker. "If you are spending your time looking for pleasure and the material things of life yt>u will make it very difficult for us, for we are a mere infant race, children compared with you.?' . '

The bishop said that at one time, when he was stationed at Bell Block thirty years ago; ho had gone to officiate at a Maori burial in a country district, and had found the grave decorated with full bottles of whisky.. He lad refused to conduct a Christian burial service with them there, and the Natives had removed them, offering the explanation that it was. their way of honouring the dead. To-day such a thing could not happen because there had arisen m the Maoris a: public opinion that would never1 tolerate it. That day he had had twenty. Maoris in the church for Holy Communion. The bishop said he thanked God for a wonderful outpouring' of grace on the Maori people. In the days to which he had just referred His cause seemed almost lost. Now .he thought that in the near future the West Coast would receive great blessings. They were a wonderful people, the Maoris of the district. Prom South' Taranalri the first Maori "proto-martyrs had set forth, iwo of them had gone frpm there to preach the Gospel to an enemy tribe in the Taupo district, ana both had been shot. The speaker himself had been present at the unveiling of a memorial tablet to them in more recent times From Taranaki, too, had come Sir Maui Pomare, Dr. Peter Buck, and Dr. Ellison, Administrator at Barotonga. He hoped that his visit would stimulate interest m the Maoris, and he again ap-l pealed for tho sympathy and prayers of the pakeha people. ■ ■ *