THE MAORI RACE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1034, 24 August 1911, Page 4

THE MAORI RACE.

INCREASE OF 1,800

“ My views is that the one future of the Maori people—sad perhaps, but a great future—will be its complete absorption into the white race.” This was the key-note of the address given to a large attendance of men at the Y.M.C.A. Wellington, by the Hon. A. T. Ngata (representative of the Maori people on the Executive). The speaker was announced to deal with “The future of the Maori people.” He summarised their social development since the advent of the white man, stating that since that time the Maoris of New Zealand had decreased by one-half. This he attributed mainly to the deadly inter-tribal conflicts which were in progress at the time of the white man’s advent, and the fatal effect upon the natives of such diseases as measles and influenza, against which the European was to a great extent prool. No sooner did civilisation introduce one beneficent influence than it brought other influences to counteract them. Unfortunately, the evil influences worked far too quickly and surely. “ Is the Maori holding his own?” asked Mr Ngata. He supplied an affirmative answer, and quoted the results of the census recently taken among the Maoris of New Zealand. The evidence of counts for ten years ending in 1906 was that the Maori population had been stationary, and the young Maori Party had looked forward with great anxiety to the last census, because its result would show whether their work in the direction of securing improved sanitation, greater care of infants, and improved moral and industrial conditions was going to justify its existence. The returns were not quite complete, but they were sufficiently so to be able to state definitely that there had been in the last five years an increase in the Maoris of 1800. When this increase was analysed, it would be found that xxoo of the total occurred in the four counties of Wairoa, Cook, Waiapu, and Opotiki, which were the districts j wherein the influence and work of the Young Maori Party had been greatest during the past ten years. (Applause.) The people of that particular portion of the North Island had taken to heart their old proverb: “The strength of the warrior is short-lived ; the strength of the man strong to cultivate endures for ever.” The Maori had capacity to absorb the best in civilisation, and the education he was getting enabled him to discriminate between what was good and what was evil. If he could absorb the European talent for business organisation there was no fear for his future. He did not hold the pessimistic idea that the Maori was a sorry remnant of a once noble race. His own view was that the one future, a sad one but great, lay in complete absorption into the white race. If the Maori simply remained in New Zealand’s

history as a people who assisted to build up this great country he would not be sorry. He believed that in literature, we would look more and more to the educated Maori and half-castes for poets who would sing properly the real charms of New Zealand. The mixture of the races —just the dash of the new blood —would give New Zealand its scientists and inventive geniuses, for they would be a people capable of looking at things from a viewpoint other than that of the orthodox Europoen, who . was inclined to get into a rut. “I go further and say that a century or so hence, the Miss Joneses, Smiths, and Robinsons of that time will be proudly working their genealogies back to Te Rauparaha and other noted cannibals of New Zealand.” (Daughter and applause.)