ANGLO-SAXON RACE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5491, 23 October 1929, Page 2

ANGLO-SAXON RACE.

EFFECT ON MAORI PEOPLE.

ILL-FEELING DISAPPEARING.

During the course of a sermon delivered by the Rt. Rev. F. A. Bennett, Bishop of AotearOa, at St. George’s Church, Frankton, on Sunday last, the Bishop said :— “You have certainly brought the message of Christianity to us, but you have also destroyed many of our social and moral customs. You have brought much that is a blessing and much that is a curse. I want you to look upon the Maori race as growing of childhood into adolescence and manhood. We are feeling greater responsibility and wish to take it upon us.” He pointed out that unfortunately the Waikato Diocese had been the scene of convict in the past. There was still a spirit of antagonism in the hearts of some of the olgi Maori chiefs who had suffered so much right down to the present. Many Maoris believed they were unjustly treated by the Government, but a Royal Commission had investigated their claims and now, after 60 years of suspicion and rankling, the injustices of the past were being compensated. 111-feeling was disappearing because the Maoris had had many of their claims adjusted. That adjustment was the act of a Christian nation, and he expressed the earnest hope that such a feeling would continue.

“I know that in sport up and down the country you haVe a tremendous admiration and regard for our young Maori men,” Bishop Bennett added. “I know that they have made their mark in many fields, but I want them to go a step higher and advance in their spiritual lives. But I would urge you to have sympathy for their weaknesses. When you see them loitering about the streets sometimes, aimless and useless, remember that you have black sheep among your own people. “After all, it is the English who have set a bad example. We had no intoxicating liquor before the arrival of the white man. We have not even a word for it in our language. The nearest word to it is ‘waipiro,? which means ‘stinking water.’ We called it that because that is just how the Maori regarded liquor when it was first introduced to New Zealand.”