THE MAORI CENSUS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 1996, 4 February 1907, Page 4

THE MAORI CENSUS.

Tlio statement made by Bishop Noligttn lit tho General Anglican Synod, to the cffoct that tho Maori missionaries woro quito eortain that tho race was docreasing, is one which deserves consideration. For it is not only based upon tho reports of roliablo moil, who have a vory natural dcsiro to report an increase, but it corroborates the testimony of a groat number of independent witnesses. Indeed, apart from tho census returns, there is no evidcfffeo whatover of Maori increase and much ovidonco of Maori decrease. Wo must therefore investigate tho conditions upon which tho census is based before any credence can attach to roturns which aro opposed to such a mass of oxpert opinion When we do so wo find that they aro compiled in a vory different manner to that of the European population and are presumably swollen by tho invetorato Maori tcndoncy to onlargo tho numerical strength and consequent importance of the •* hapu.” If tho Maori is actually decreasing, as there is much reason to think, it is due as much to tho deadlock which exists in tho communal system as to any inevitable tendency of a more simply organised raco to disappear beforo tho contact of a more highly organised rnco. Tho Maori who wishes to adapt himself to tho European environment, ns many aro known to do, cannot make any individual uso of tho enormous area of Native Land which is locked up from sottlemont nominally in his interest. Ho cannot usually claim tho smallest holding as his own. nor can ho dispose of surplus land in order to provide himself with the capital necessary to work a farm. Ho generally lives from hand to mouth upon vast domains which aro useless to him, and those who pose as his friends throw every possible impediment in tho way of an equitable solution of tho Native Lands question. The result appears to Ho that while ho is being protected from those who'wish to uso tho land he could not use—for which they aro quite willing to liavo tho Govornmont pay him, and on which thoy desire to establish tho ordinary conditions governing the disposal of tho Crown Lands of the colony—he is perishing from tho face of tho earth. —N.Z, Herald.