A MAORI PETITION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1087, 24 August 1912, Page 4

A MAORI PETITION.

Maoris seem to conceive the spirit of a petition more vividly than Europeans. They realise more the essential meaning of a petition as a prayer, and in their forms of language attain an eloquence which often makes an oasis in the mass of documents, all couched in the same dreary impersonal expressions, punctiliously tabled each day in Parliament. Here is a good example of Maori "petition” "To the honourable members now assembled in Parliament: Who hold the remedy tor those afflicted by disaster, who will rectify the wrong done. May you all thrive under the protection of our Father in Heaven, who will help you night and day. 1. This is a petition by us to . . . the powers who are assembled together in the strong House of Learning. We hereby pray to you in connection with certain calamities that have fallen upon us. 2. Two roads have been constructed and taken over a small piece of land belonging to us. 3. The railway line makes three. 4. The road runs over our papakainga, and alongside the churchhouse. In consequence of this, great sorrow has come upon us, and we therefore pray that these roads be made into one and taken along the railway line.”