WHY MEN OUGHT TO MAKE MONEY.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume II, Issue 7, 31 July 1856, Page 4

WHY MEN OUGHT TO MAKE MONEY.

Every individual of the civilised world, from the moment when he is able to work, turns his attention to making money. Every white man in this colony is engaged in doing so, and every day more of the Maories are becoming rich andimportant by striving to do so. Why is this, and ought it to be so ? This question we should like to discass with our native readers in this article. Does money make men more happy, and did not the old Maories do better to sit down, and

leave off working when they had enough food for a few weeks, instead of troubling themselves with making provision for the next year or the year after, as the white men do, and as the Maories are beginning to do? Now this is a difficult question to answer, but still we think we shall be able to shosv that although money does not always make men happy, still it is their dirty to spend a great portion of their life in making it. Money is both a good and an evil. So is the sea. It helps the merchant to carry his property for thousands of miles, and sell it where it is wanted, and then it is a good, but sometimes it drowns the poor sailor, and there it is an evil. In the same way, money sometimes makes men happy, and sometimes unhappy ; but there is this great difference, that while the best and cleverest sailor is sometimes drowned,money would never make people really unhappy if they strive to earn it for a good purpose, and know how to make a good use of it. Some people make money, only because they like to feel that they are rich, and to go an count over their money. Such men don't like !o spend it at all, but will go and hide it where St is of no good, either to themselves or others. They are generally very miserable men; and indeed, in English they are called misers, which means miserable —and so they must be, for they work very hard, and, after all, their money is of no more use to them than a heap of stones; it is even worse, for Ihey are afraid of losing it, and even will make themselves wretched, by thinking that somebody will have their money after their death. For these men money is truly an evil. Olher men act in just a contrary manner. They work day and night, lo make money, and when Ihey have made it, they spend it like fools. Such men you may often see

after (hey have received Ihcir wages, -drinking at public houses, and rolling about drunk, till all their, money is gone, and they are obliged to go back and work. For such men, money is a a evil'. They destroy their health, lose their good name, and when they get old, and don't work any longer, they have nothing to live on, and must depend for tbeir subsistence on the charily or others. Now, for both these men money is an evil, because they don't know, or won't learn how to employ it when they have got it. The one does not use it; the other makes a bad use of it. Money, however, is not only an evil from the manner of employing it, but also from the manner of making it. Some men are so anxious to make money that they are always on the look out for the slightest opportunity of putting some gains into their own pockets. -They will never do another person a service for nothing, if they think there is any chance of getting payment for it, and if they know (hat (hey must be employed (hey will ask (hree or four times as much as they otherwise would. If a traveller comes to a man of this sort, and asks him to put him in hiscanoe across a river, and the man knows that the traveller must go and has no eboice, he will make him pay (hree or four times more than is just Such a man is not really happy when he does get his money, for (he Bible says, " Do as you would be done by ?" and this man does not do so, and no man is happy, who disobeys the laws of religion. Other men are so anxious to make money that they are not to be trusted. They are always trying to get other people's property, and though they cannot steal it for J fear of the punishment of the laws, they try to cheat and defraud them of it. For all these men money is an evil. They are so anxious to! make it, that they think of nothing else, and i forget all their duties to their families and their ! friends and their country ; ihey do no good I during their life, but only make enmities and ! unhappiness, and when they are dead they are quite forgotten or only remembered as bad and selfish men. I We might tell of many other ways in which money is an evil, but we will now see how money may be made good. We have said before it was the duty of men to work and make money. Now, he must do this, not in order to spend it foolishly, but in order to make himself and others happy and comfortable. A man ought to work not only for the present time, but he ought to make provision for the future, so that if he is prevented from working either by old age or by sickness, he may have something to live on. He should also work for his wife and children, so that if he dies, they may have something to live on. If a man has spent all his money

foolishly, and is going lo die,it makes him very unhappy to think that he can leave nothing lo his family, and that they will be poor and miserable. And when a man gets old and poor because he can't work, the recollection of all the money which he has foolishly spent, and which would make him comfortable, comes into his head, and makes him unhappy. Thus you see it is the duly of everybody to work and make money, and if they make use of it in the way we have spoken of, it is a great good. And if a man is industrious, he will always be able in New Zealand to get enough money for himself and his family, and if be has worked well •for bis children when they were young, they will work for him when he is old. And the -industrious man need never be too anxious for money, or try to grasp other men's property, •for there is room enough in the woild for all. We must tell our Maori readers one other thing. They must not always expect to make money equally easily, and so when it is easy to get money, they must put it by for the time when it is difficult to get it, and not do as those who make a great feast one day, and have nothing to eat the next. Some years the corn and the potatoes will sell for a good deal less than other years. The while men know this, and so if ihey get much money for their produce one year, they put it by, and if they do not get so much the next year, they are still comfortable, because they have saved up from the former year. Oar friends can now see what we mean by money being a good. If properly used it makes a man and his family comfortable, and prevents him being miserable, when he is siek or old, and when he is dying. A man is happy to be able lo leave something to his wife and children. We therefore wish (hat our Maori friends may be successful in their cultivations, and when lliev make money, may learn lo make a good use of it. If they do this, they will find it a great good.