OPUNAKE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 13, 22 April 1871, Page 1

OPUNAKE.

The " Taranaki Herald " of April 6 has the following letter, dated Opukriake, April B—lt appears very evident to me that the natives in this, district are in a fair way to become civilised. We found them destitute of European clothing on our arrival here some fifteen months back. I believe there was only one decent suit of clothes in the district, which was common property, and used for town-going purposes on great occasions, so it may he imagined it had heavy duty to perform. Now each male individual has his *own wardrobe, and what is more to the purpose, owes for it, and when a native can get into his tailor's books, it must be admitted that he has made some progress in civilisation. Some weeks since I observed the wife of one of our leading chiefs dandling a tiny, dusky object clothed in lavender colored silk. On a closer inspection it proved to be an onspring of that fair lady. It was amusing to witness day by day the gradual but certain change of the gay attire from its original splendor , until it could scarcely de distinguished from the ordinary dirty calico which usually clothed the distinguished babe. The people of our pah also show marks of what may be termed one of the lower types of civilised usage. They go in occasionally for a big drink. Whether it is the monotony of their mode of life which induces this form of excitement I know not, but when moved

in that direction by some powerful influence, the whole adult population participate in the stimulating draught. On such occasions embarrassing cases of mistaken identity occur, which are more gently dealt with than they would be during less exciting times, and a general average of individual error is , struck out, which satisfies public opinion. Another instance of the march of civilisation, and I have done. Most persons know something of those combinations among workmen in the old country for the purpose of obtaining some supposed advantage which employers are unwilling to grant, and which are known by the name of strikes. The Maoris can do this better than the. pakeha. Their strike is, as regards their own people, complete and effective because it is unanimous. Lately the bullock cart proprietors employed at the mills asked for an advance, and as this was not granted, they struck work, although the running of the mill depended on their working till carts could be obtained from New Plymouth. But neither love nor money would induce them to do so, and the strike was effective, and was almost the cause of our mill-being stopped for the want of flax, and % was quite as effective in the case of the other. As a specimen of utter blindness to their own interests, I think the Maoris in this district are unequalled. They might if they thought fit, by working at a"low rete of wages for themselves and carts, be monthly m the receipt of some £3OO, but they play such fantastic tricks, and are so entirely oblivious of the imperative necessity of steady, daily attendance to work, that the conviction is forced on the mill proprietors, that it is a matter of impossibility, where a large number of natives are employed to carry on operations with anything like the regularity so necessary to the financial success of the flax industry. A resident population here, content with steady work at a rate of wages which would afford a profit to investors, would render the industry established here a permanent one, and form the nucleus of what would shortly be-a thriving district abounding in all the necessary appliances for facilitating the settlement of the surrounding country. I have written somewhat sarcastically respecting the civilization of our Maori friends; but speaking seriously I have no doubt that they are advancing, and if we could afford to be mere spectators of. this commingling of apparently irreconcilable modes of thought, we might calmly philosophise as we watched the interesting process. Oil and water, however freely mixed, do not form a, homogeneous liquid, unless the friendly alkali lends its efficacious aid, so it is with the pakeha and Maori —commerce plays the part in uniting the races, which alkali does in the case of oil and water. The process is truly slow, and those who are interested in the development of a new industry which is daily embarrassed by the freaks of a people in the transition stage between barbarians and bagmen, are apt to become impatient, and lose all hope of the Maoris as a class ever being converted into reasonable beings. Yet when by an extraordinary effort I can lift my thought out of the blighted hopes and fears of ordinary life, I can plainly see that if things go on as they are now going, that in a generation or two the Maori will have become sufficiently civilised to be fit for a member of our Provincial Council, have sufficient ambition to tr>rforlthe Speakership.