THE MAORI AND GAMBLING.

Gisborne Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1582, 12 October 1905, Page 4

THE MAORI AND GAMBLING .

(By a Correspondent.)

The chief inspector of native schools, Me W. Bird, M.A , is to bo congratulatod on his outspoken comments in roforonoo to tho pernicious effect of gambling and billiards on tho Maori race. In his report, prosontod to Parliament last month, inter alia ho says, , “Tho Maoris are pauperised by gambling,” and in reference to billiard saloons, “Whatever stops are taken to ameliorate the conditions of tho Maori the suppression of those gambling dens should be among the first.” There is no doubt that of billiards and gambling tho latter is tho greater evil. The Maori loves to gamble with cards. He does not care how much he spends when he is gambling. He knows that he will not starve ; that if he cannot buy food his brother will get it for him. At times he has plenty of money to spend, and he does not care about improving his home or for 1 things that the pakeha values. He feels no loss of Belf-respect after a night spent in debauchery ; he lovee excitement and the pleasure of the moment; he does not “ whip the cat ” even if he has gone so far as to gamble the’shirt off his back; in fact he rather regards such as a huge joke, and he docs not worry about to-morrow. Summed up, with the Maori generally speaking it is a case of “Eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die.” The pity of it is that through their viceß, learnt from the pakeha mostly, and their aimless existence, it seems to be a fact that the race will die unless reform takes place. Those who know the Maori best cannot but admit that gambling is one of the causes of the decay of the race. It is a greater evil among them than drink is and that is bad enough. The fact is that the whole question of what to do to prevent the death of the race is a tangled skein that requires a deal of unravelling. It is easy to say that this and that are doing unspeakable harm to the Maori, and to cry out that this must be suppressed, and that must be prohibited, but suppression: and prohibition never yet did good unless a great majority of the people among whom this suppression and prohibition are enforced, is infavor of such, and honestly desire such legislation, not in order to save “the other fellow,” but becauso the thing suppressed is an evil that must not be indulged in by a race that wishes to preserve its virility. With the Maori, reformation must come from within and cannot be forced from without by suppression. Those Europeans who are spending their lives in the effort to up-lift and educate tho i Maori must feel sometimes as Hamlet when he said, “ The world is out of j oint, a cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right,” and deserve sympathy and encouragement from all. Those who love the race, and those young ' Maori patriots who by living a clean : and righteous life are setting an example to their fellows, earnestly wish to see the Maori rise up out of the “ Slough of despond ” into which he has sunk up to the neok and regain his lost manhood. I am convinced that any nativejschool inspector or teacher will say that there ig hope in the children. But under existing circumstances there is little or no hope. Until the Maori has an aim in life, and until he ceases to base his life on the principle of “ Let us eat and drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die,” all the work of teachers and preachers will be of little avail. If their work is to produce any lasting effect, the whole question of what is the best way to give the Maori a chance of becoming a useful and self-respecting oitisen must be carefully gone into. Some say “ Put the Maori on the same footing as the Europeans in all ways, and he will flourish.” Something must be done and quickly too, lor we New Zealanders will have it Jto 'our eternal discredit that we have allowed the decline and death of a raoe whose entity is worth preserving.