Hawke's Bay Times. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER, 12, 1867. SPECIAL MAORI REPRESENTATION.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XII, Issue 508, 12 September 1867, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER, 12, 1867. SPECIAL MAORI REPRESENTATION.

“ KuHius addidns jttrare in verba viagldrlP

A tew days will probably give us information of the fate of Mr McLean’s Bill for the Special Representation of the iMaori people in the iejjisiature of the Colony. Until that time it is use less to speculate on the probabilities one way or the other, whether it be passed and become law, or rejected by the House. Neither can anything we may have to say or on the subject influence the result. Yet it is well for us to take note of measures that are attempted or contemplated, and give such a calm and candid consideration.

We regard all special legislation as false in principle, but are not prepared to deny that there may be some exceptional cases that may call for it. That this is one such, as is affirmed by the advocates of the measure, we by no means admit to be the case.

From the first attempt to establish a government over the Maori race in these islands special legislation has been tried, and has always miserabh failed. We have tried to bestow upon the race, free of cost, or with accompanying rewards, all the blessings oi civilized society—blessings that can not be obtained by our own people without toil and cost. Thus we have by rendering our philanthropy too pressing, and making our benefits too cheap to the Maori, effectually prevented the action of the one and the adoption of the other. We have ■ ll’ered them what they have not seen the need of—have pressed on their acceptance boons that they could not appreciate and did not desire ; we have coaxed, petted, and bribed them to acceptof our civilization, its comforts, its books, its educational establishments, its hospitals, its law and order, and its Christianity. For the sake of the bribes attached thereto, some of them have pretended to accept these things, rather as an act of condescension and showing a favor to us, than from any appreciation of the value of our institutions or their feeling themselves in need of them, and the con sequence is—all has failed.

No value is supposed to attach to things so freely offered to them, and they are therefore rejected. Schools erected at agreat expense and endowed with vast extents of landed property are deserted, or frequented hy a solitary scholar or hy a mere handful of such, retained not by the love of education but by the bribes received in the shape of food and clothing. Hospitals erected and in like manner endowed they refuse to enter, preferring to die in their own squalor than receivt medicines and attention so cheaply efferred. Of the gigantic system ol Maori magistracy adopted especially for the introduction of law and order amongst them, and for which it was falsely asserted they strove, nothing ne w remains but the cost to the Colony in the salaries paid to the swarms of officials appointed under that system, bearing titles from assesors to policemen. The law and order is a myth, the payments alone are real: so of this proposal to confer a special franchise on them.- They do not value it. They do not desire it, and when it is offered them, they will probably meet their liberal benefactors with the peculiar Maori query of “ How Much ?"' What will you give us to become voters? Those few amongst them win by actual contact ■with the European have been unable to resist the civilizino effect of such association, and have acquired some knowledge of the value of the suffrage, can obtain it as easily

AS any Oi the Colonists much easier ia fact than many. The simple act of building a house worthy of the name, in place of the traditional

whare, bring sufficient to give them the rights they are said to desire ; a price easy enough for them to pay for a coveted boon. Here is scope for the benevolence of the Maori sympathiser; let him show bis protegee the advan-

tage oi civilized habits and practices—let him excite a desire for the advantages which we enjoy and do not deny but which he refuses to accept, and let him teach him how to obtain them. Not the suffrage only, but this amongst the rest, and he will confer on the pitied race a thousandfold more real good than by casting his pearls before those who trample them under i heir feet from sheer incapacity to see that they are of value, and judge the contrary because they are so freely offered to them. The Maori is, it must be remembered, a firm believer in the doctrine of “ utu,” and does not expect to get as he does not give anything for nothing.