TO THE MAORIES OF NEW ZEALAND.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume 3, Issue 69, 14 August 1851, Page 2

TO THE MAORIES OF NEW ZEALAND.

A FEW WORDS OF POLITICAL KCONOMY. You are, O my friends, Maories, in a strange and very responsible position. As you have many advantages to enjoy, so you have many duties to ptrform. Providence has placed among you a civilized, energetic, and industrious race,—the English. On all sides you see proofe of that civilization, energy, and industry. In the harbours of New Zealand you sco vessels, to and fro, laden v. ith precious freights. Towns and villages occupy the sites of former pahs and scenes of former battles. The fern, the tea-tree, the forest find the swamp, have, in many places, become corn fielifc and meadows. Mills, worked by fire, air, and water, are busy preparing a new kind of food. Machinery is at work dressing and weaving flax. Deep excavations are formed underground, where men toil, night and day, for mineral treasures. Whale-boats, amid Btorm and breakers, engage and capture monsters of the deep in their own elemen'. Your country gradually changes its aspect. Broad roads cfiipiluce your narrow paths. The traffic of men, caVis, and horses is now heard where all, a few years ago, was silence and desolation. Cattle roam in yoftr vast plains, and dense forests resound lo the woodman's axe. Nowhere are the Pakchas idle. Kike bees, they swarm and accumulate. Their destiny is irresistible progress. Now, whatis your duty.while these things are going on 1 ? Sit still, and let the advancing stream, as you imagine, carry you also onwards ! I S3y, No.—The tide will not float, hut drown you. You must exert yourselves to keep pace with it. To be inactive is to retrograde. To retrograde is to perish. Yuur ancestors might, generation after generation, sleep idly. You cannot j your sleep is but a prelude to death—your health, your wealth, and your existence as a race depend on ac. tivily. I entreat you then—if you value your own welfare—if yon do not wisli to be a diseased, poor, and decaying people, to arouse yourselves. Emulate the Pakeha in the honest, industrious pursuit of wealth. Do not waste time (and time is not only money but life itself) over petty jealousies and wordy quarrels. Do not beg for alms. Do not hnng listlessly about towns. Do not send your women there to earn the wages of their own shame. Do no'

merely grow potatoes for your own consump- I lion. Become agriculturists in tile true sense of ibe word,—Giiow Wheat. You will thus become rich, and, with the precepts of you r Missionaries and friends to guide you, you will also become happy. Bread, from the earliest ages, has been the stall' ol life. The most distinguished nations of the earth lmvo always, from time immemorial, cultivated wheat ns their principal article of food. Heathens deified corn. Christians r egard it ns a bh's«iiig only second to Revelation. Potatoes have only been known by civilised nations for about three hundred years. It is doubtful whether, in North America, where they were first discovered, they were used by the natives as food. Experience has taught us that from its exclusive use as food an infinite variety of social evils will always spring. Then the market for potatoes is sma'l. They will not long hear exportation. But wheat will remain sound lor centuries, and its market is almost unlimited. In many places, like ihe Cape of Good Mope, and Mauritius, the chief supply of wheat is from without ; in others, the harvest is uncertain. New South Wales is an illustration of both classes, and from the immense number of persons assembling there to gather gold, there is every prospect of an unfailing market at your very doors. But, it is not only that in supplying wheat you can earn money, when potatoes would be valueless, but even in cultivating and preparing it for your own fond, —as contrasted with potatoes, —see what a number of arts of civilization are forced" upon your attention, what a number of opportunities for acquiring know'edge are presented to you, nnd how imperceptibly you are almost forced to rise in the scale of humanity. Take potn'ocs first: —l lie ground is meagrely broken up; the seed carelessly sown; Ihe crop untended; ihe potatoes peeled by old women and pipi-shells, cooked on hot stones, and at once devoured. Year after year, this dull rouiine is repealed by you. You become idle and careless. You lounge ahout in threadbare blankets, and sleep in unwholesome hovels. But with wheal, mark the difference. There are ihe harrow nnd plough to prepare ihe ground,—the funow to receive the seed.— constant care for the young crop, —the sickle to reap,—the flail to thresh, —the barn to store, ■ —the mill to grind,—the leaven to ferment, —ihe oven to bake bread or biscuit for use, ns you may, from time to time, require. This constant succession (if claims on mental and bodily exertion biings with it its pecniiir blessing. No man, who faithfully fulfils such claims, will long be content to remain ragged and ill-housed. It is therefore the sincere wish of all your true friends to see you become cultivators of wheal. They believe that that will be the best means to preserve and benefit your raci>. Why, then, should not you renlUe their wishes ? You have every temptation in the goal in view, and every facility in your course to it. You ! have land, laborers, and water-carriage for ' your produce. Let them no longer remain ; idle. Vou have been told, Wheat is Gold. I fell you it is much belter. Man has urbitraiily fixed an artificial value on gold, and its supply is accordingly attended by toil, danger, and • the excitement ol the worst passions of man- > kind. Nature lias put her own spontaneous blfssing on wheat, as the principal food of man, anil accordingly its supply has, by a re- ; action of its o« n blessing, ever proved the ' fruitful source of prosperity. From a Friend in Auckland.