MAORI CURIOS.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 154, 11 July 1901, Page 1

MAORI CURIOS.

’LEA FOB THE 111 RETENTION IN THE COLONY.

(Special to Tijiks.) Wellington, last night. Every admirer of the native race will be pleased to hear the question of putting some restriction on .the exportation of Maori curios from the colony has been brought before the House of Representatives, and is likely to be favorably considered by the Government. As Air T. McKenzie, who introduced the matter yesterday, indicated, it is high time that some steps were taken to preserve to the colony those comparatively few relies of the early Maori art and industry which arc still to be found in the laud, for though wo have the recent welcome assurance of the recent census that the decline in the numbers of the noble race who owned New Zealand before the advent of the white man has been arrested, the gradual spread of European modes and- methods among the Natives must inevitably tend to efface what was most characteristic of the people in their early history, and as ho becomes more Europeanised

the Maori is certain to value less, not merely the old customs, but the relics of tho past. Already the use of European implements has almost entirely replaced those of Native design and workmanship. The old agricultural tools and weapons of warfare are becoming rarer and rarer. The wonderful old carving, a monument of patient skill, is practically a lost art. Even its modern substitute, wrought with hammer and steel, is the work of very few Native artists. If we would have some mementoes of the handiwork of the real Maori as ho was in tho days gone by,

wo must make haste to secure them. Collectors from other countries are snapping them up. They have been donated by generous Natives with lavish hands. Where they still remain they are too often exposed to the ravages of the weather, which, considering the perishable material in which for the most part they were wrought, must bring about their speedy decay.

OPINION FBOM AUCKLAND.

(Special to Times.) Auckland, last night. The Native Minister, states the Auckland Star, in its loader this evening, in reply to Mr McKenzie’s request that something should be done by Government to remedy this state of tilings, expressed full sympathy with the proposal that the exportation of Maori curios should be stopped, but Mr Carroll went further, and urged that a museum should be erected by Government for the safo keeping of these things, and that attention should be devoted to the collection of them before they have all disappeared. AVe trust (concludes the article) that Mr Carroll, who is precisely the man to take this matter up, will be as good as his speech, and see that something i 6 done in the direction that he indicates.