DECLINE OF THE MAORI RACE.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 2, Issue 82, 27 July 1868, Page 182

DECLINE OF THE MAORI RACE.

(Wellington Independent.) Feom recent returns prepared for the information .of Sir George Bowen we learn that the total Maori population is estimated now in 1868, to 38,517 ; of which number all except from 1500 to 2000 reside in the Northern Island. Ten years ago, in 1858, a Government census returned the total Maori population at 56,049 ; twenty yeai’B ago, in 1858, the Maoris were estimated at about 100,000. The causes which have contributed to produce this rapid and deplorable decay have been discussed at length by several writers of ability and local experience. Mr Fox shows that the gradual disappearance of the Maoris is hot to be attributed in any large degree to their intercourse with Europeans; for “that, for the niost part, has led to the adoption of better dwellings, better general habits of life.” ...... “The one great cause has been, and is their utter disregard of all those social and sanitary conditions which are so essential to the continuing vitality of the.human race. This cause was in existence long before there was a European in the islands, and there is little doubt that the race was on the decrease when: Cook first landed here.” There, has been so much said by successive Native Ministers of the management of the Maori race, that every testimony as to their condition is acceptable. The following would lead us to believe that the Maoris are being killed with kindness :—“Their state of feeling towards the Europeans generally may be characterised as friendly, although a feeling jealousy, on'the score of race sometimes shows itself, which feeling quickly finds vent when first exhibited by the Europeans here (Wanganui) having no grounds of quarrel are mutually well disposed one another. As to their physical and mcr il condition I must report unfavorably. The present race are decidedly inferior to their forefathers, the cause of which can be traced to the partial adoption of European clothing, food, &0., and to the lazy habits the young men are apt to fall into from the want of employment, and to their too easily obtaining the means of subsistence through "the large sums of money received by the sale and leasing of their lands and other sources, and by their still partially dinging to their old habits and customs, and by the unsettling of their minds through political excitement. ■ Morally- speaking the -natives have much retrograded.”