SPECIAL MAORI REPRESENTATION.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 38, 16 September 1867, Page 229

SPECIAL MAORI REPRESENTATION.

A few days will probably give us information of the fate of Mr McLean’s Bill for the Special Representation of the Maori people in the legislature of the Colony* Until that time it is useless 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 miserably failed. We have tried to bestow upon the race, free of cost, or with accompanying rewards, all the blessings of 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 offered 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 accept of 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 consequence is-—all has failed. No value is supposed to attaeli to things so freely; offered to them, and | they are therefore rejected. Schools erected at agreat expense and endowed

j ■ —; ’ with vast extents of landed property are deserted, or frequented by a solitary scholar or by 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 receive medicines and attention so cheaply ofierred. Of the gigantic system of Maori, magistracy adopted especially for the introduction of law and order amongst them, and for which it was falsely asserted they strove, nothing now 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 policejjtnen. The.law and order is a myth, he payments alone are real; so of bis proposal to confer a special franihise on them. They do not value it, They do not desire it, and when it is jffered them, they will probably meet heir liberal benefactors with the ieculiar Maori query of “ How Much ?’ 3 Vhat will you give us to become wters ? Those few amongst them who jy actual contact with the European lave been unable to resist the civilizing I feet of such association, and have .cquired some knowledge of the value f the suffrage, can obtain it as easily s any of the colonists—much easier in fact than many. The simple act k building a house worthy of the tjame, in place of the traditional whare, being 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 his protegee the advantage of civilized habits and practices—let him excite a desire for the ad van tages 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 their 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.