THE MAORI CENSUS.

Patea Mail, Volume V, Issue 422, 3 May 1879, Page 2

THE MAORI CENSUS.

(New Zealander.) It may interest Home readers to glean a few facts concerning the native race of these islands. The census taken in March last gives authoritative data. It will be seen that the race is gradually decaying under inexorable natural laws, which neither civilisation nor religion will avail to avert. The Maoris are decreasing at the rate of 800 per annum, and if this continues for two generations more, the Maoris, like the black fellows of Australia, will be but a scattered remnant of the tribes erstwhile strong enough to resist, and not ingloriously, England’s might, and who oven now, in their dealings with colonial Ministers, obtain concessions which are in effect peremptory commands. In 1874 the census of the Maori population showed -a total of 46,016. In 1878, when the last census was taken, and of which the returns have only

recently been published, the total Maori population had decreased to 42,189. The causes for this decrease are shown in the reports' furnished by the Census Collectors and Native Commissioners,. from which we append brief extracts. The Collector in the Hokianga district, at the northern extremity of the North Island, attempting to explain why the native population is slowly but surely passing away, attributes it in a great measure to the inordinate use of spirits, and that of the worst possible description, and that thus parents, though naturally of strong constitutions, have become so debauched that they fail to be progenitors of a population so healthy as their forefathers. The Collector in the Bay of Islands, a district on the east coast of the North Island, writes—“ There are three principal causes accounting for the decrease of the native population.. First, their love of drink. Second, the sacrifice of their females to prostitution, often when very young. Third, their change of mode of living and clothing. Formerly they wore little or no clothes, and were from infancy inured to the weather, and their bodies being covered with “red ochre” and oil, prevented them from feeling the changes in the weather as they seem now to do. Since taking to wearing blankets and other warm clothing, they appear to have become more susceptible to cold ; no doubt on account of the irregular way they clothe themselves, sometimes having sufficient, and at others having scarcely any.” Mr Alexander, the Commissioner having control over native business in the provincial districts of Nelson, Malborough, and Westland in the South Island, shows that the decrease there has been uqnal to 45 per cent in the two decennary periods between 1858 and 1878, but of which 20 per cent is attributable to migration of natives to other ocalities. He writes thus:—“ The prudential checks to population which operate in many parts of the world, exercise no retarding influence with the natives, as they usually possess an abundance of good land with every facility for obtaining the necessaries of life, to which is added the advantage of dwelling in a climate of greater salubrity than is enjoyed in most parts of the world ; but, notwithstanding all these advantages that tend to keep a population in a normal condition, the Maori is gradually passing away.” The main causes, apart from other reasons that may be advanced for the decline of the native race, are their low social habits, the weakness of the females, the inequaliay of the sexes in a directly inverse order to that obtaining amongst the population of other countries in a healthy condition, and the groat paucity of births together with a high rate of mortality. All these influences tend to show that, so long as so many and such powerful causes adverse to the increase of population exist, any restlt except decrease is impossible.

Advocates of total abstinence will thus find striking examples to strengthen their arguments in the melancholy fate of the noble savage, who, brought within the pale of civilisation, lias adopted its vices and repelled its moralities. The instincts of the Maori are those of slothful sensuality, having money he will not work, even for his own comfort. His lands afford him moans for indulgence in all that is debasing, and his vices are quickly bringing him to the grave. Among the young of the native race bettor habits are being instilled, and education may yet save them from the fate of their progenitors.