SHARP REPROOF

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 744, 17 August 1929, Page 9

SHARP REPROOF

MAORI MEMBER’S UTTERANCES

MR. K. S. WILLIAMS OUTSPOKEN (The SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Friday. A pointed rebuke was given the member for Southern Maori, Mr. T. Makitanara, in the House of Representatives this afternoon for his disrespectful remarks about the title of Sir Maui Pomare. Mr. K. S. Williams was the man who rebuked the Maori member, and he did so in his Budget speech. It astonished him, Mr. Williams said, that the member should refer to Sir Maui Pomare in anything but a commendatory way. He would remind Mr. Makitanara of a Maori proverb which said, “Carry very carefully the name of your village.” It had been the custom of his Majesty the King to confer native honours on distinguished men, both in the political world and outside, and the King had been pleased to honour in that way three members of the native race. The first was Sir James Carroll, a member of both the Pakeba and Maori races. He was the first gentleman with native blood in his veins to be knighted, and was once ActingPremier of New Zealand. New Zealand was proud of him. Then there came Sir Maui Pomare, who, Mr. Williams thought, had occupied a seat in the Cabinet for longer than anyone else in any of the Domiinons. “We remember his work in attending to the lepers in the Islands—a work that can never be repaid,” said Mr. Williams amid hear, hears. “He and his good lady have done everything possible to foster the interests of the native race.”

Then in the present Cabinet there was Sir Apirana Ngata, and everyone in New Zealand would admit that he thoroughly deserved his honour. It was very much out of place for the member for Southern Maori to comment. The honours were not taken so much personally as for the whole native race, and particularly the tribe to which the recipient of the honour belonged. At the conclusion of Mr. Williams’s speech, Mr. Makitanara made an explanation, saying that he had not referred to Sir Apirana Ngata. Voices: You did!

Mr. Makitanara denied this, and said that Mr. R. A. Wright (Wellington Suburbs) had spoken flippantly of Sir Joseph Ward as the Earl of Awarua. Lord Bluff. He had replied in the same way. As he had explained before, there was nothing personal in his reference.