THE U.S. FLEET.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9127, 23 April 1908, Page 2

THE U.S. FLEET.

VIEWS OF A MAORI CHIEF. ' Press Association. Auckland, April 22. So many suggestions have been made as to how best the visitors by the American fleet next August may be entertained that a press representative had a few words with a leading Maori chief this morning as to the possibility of there being a combined demonstration. He said, “The Maori is constantly told that he is a useless member of society, that he does nothing with his land, and makes no effort towards his own betterment, and yet people want him to gather to make a display just at the worst time of the year for him to be away from his land. If he is to better his position he wants to be at work on his land about August. There is another thing to which I should like to make reference now. It is a great pity that Rotorua should always be mentioned in support of the view that any natural gathering together of the Maoris leads to the sapping of moral fibre. Whatever may be said regarding the Poi and other dances at Rotorua, it is now recognised, so far as the Maori is concerned, to be one of the most morally clean centres in the North Island. I claim that even if such were not the case the blame would rest more with the Pakeha than with the Maori. You may smile, but

from what I have seen in your great city of Auckland on the occasion of the visit of several warships. I can assure you that there is more justification there for any remarks on the score of .virtue than at Rotorua. There is another matter to which I would like to refer. I see that some of the writers object to a big Maori gathering because of the deaths that took place when we all assembled at Rotorua to see Queen Victoria’s grandson. Now I wish to explain that some of those deaths were old

men, who should not have gone to to the meeting at all. We told them that they might die if they went. They replied “It is the only chance we will ever have of seeing the

grandson cf our white mother, and we will go to see him, and having seen him, will die if die we mast for * going there.” My people were proud to gather together in large numbers to meet the grandson of our Great White Mother, but that is a very diffrent thing to gathering for the purpose of making a show for a fleet which does not belong to our own Empire.