The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1929 THE SIMPLE MAORI

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 762, 7 September 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1929 THE SIMPLE MAORI

WHEN a recent discussion of the problem of unpaid native rates betrayed Mr. Campbell Johnstone, chairman of the Waikato Hospital Board, into the argument that native members of Parliament should be elected only by Europeans, and that no native should be appointed a Minister of the Crown, he not only committed a regrettable breach of taste, but also pledged himself to a principle wholly at variance with the canons of trust and understanding which have made white New Zealanders so successful in their dealings with the Maoris. Apparently Mr. Johnstone would like to see the Maoris treated as India treats her low-caste coolies and Africa treats her Kafirs. In these countries the method of subduing and dominating the native may have succeeded in the past, hut there is no guarantee that it will continue to succeed in the future. Even races credited with the minimum of intelligence, as Europeans understand it, are now revealing social and political aspirations, and the directions in which those hitherto repressed tendencies may find an outlet is one of the great problems of the world today. Basing his argument presumably on the theory that nonpayment of rates on the part of the Maoris reflects a fundamental political incapacity, Mr. Johnstone blandly overlooks the converse possibility that the ability to escape payment of rates is one that even the most law-abiding citizen of white descent might envy! Such a faculty seems of itself to credit the Maori with the highest form of intelligence. Even Mr. Johnstone is baffled! Moreover, if the shelving of their obligations by the Maoris be on the surface inexcusable, it is well known that in the Waikato country there remain some smouldering memories which may continue to prevent the most amicable economic progress, though otherwise there is no reason to assume that the Maori has failed to justify the political and social confidence reposed in him. As a farmer he has shown that, in the right conditions, he can he a success. As a craftsman, too, he can be a skilful and energetic worker. Allowance must be made for the fact that not one hundred years have yet passed since the Maoris were brought under European influence. It is a short period in which to expect a race to discard all its characteristics. The future of the Maori in the centuries to come can only tend toward a harmonious blending with the white people of the country. Even now the diffusion of Maori blood in many districts is most pronounced. In this the Maoris resemble the Hawaiians, and differ vastly from the oppressed native races. The contrast in the attitude of Americans toward the native Hawaiian and to the negro on the American mainland is most conspicuous. Where the former is treated as an equal, the negro, still struggling with the inhibitions of generations, is definitely regarded as an inferior. In Hawaii, as in New Zealand, the future of the native race is ultimate absorption by the white colonists. In America, by contrast, the future of the negro millions is beset with problems of the most disquieting and perplexing character.

While Mr. Campbell Johnstone permits himself to reflect on the intellectual and moral character of Maoris-—a reflection that seems grossly out of place when such men as Bishop Bennett, of Aotearoa, Sir Apirana Ngata and Dr. P. H. Buck, among a number, ornament the posts they separately hold—it is interesting to see that such a gifted student as Dr. Ivan Sutherland, Professor of Philosophy at Victoria College, Wellington, has a Arm belief in the intellectual capacity of the Maori. In a paper read at the Ninth International Congress of Psychology at Yale University, America, Dr. Sutherland has discussed racial traits as an influence on culture. His conclusion is that the Maori, once familiar with the premises, argues as logically on any subject as the European. This view will be endorsed by any one who has tried to best a Maori in any serious bargain. The Maori’s ingenious faculty for making the best of a horse deal is traditional! Furthermore, it is well to remember some of the epic feats of the Maori in the Dominion’s brief history since colonisation. He quickly acquired facility in the use of European implements and European weapons. The guile of the warrior who begged gifts of armour from his English hosts, and then sold the armour to buy guns in Sydney, is matched by the skill with which the native leaders in the early wars arranged their fortifications to combat British tactics. The disastrous repulse of Despard at Ohaeawai was the sequel to a woeful under-estimate of the Maori’s military intelligence. In the Waikato struggle there was further evidence of the Maori’s calibre. If New Zealand, as General Duncan Cameron observed, was “the grave of glory,” that was not entirely due to the character of the country. The superb skill and gallantry of the enemy in the field made glory difficult to achieve. Politically, too, the Maori was matching the Pakeha. Frequently the responses of the Maoris to the administration’s expedients were marked by simple hut unanswerable logic. Wi Kingi’s tactics in the famous Waitara dispute, when he met the soldiery, not with arms, hut with the crude caresses of elderly crones, will be remembered as a triumph of militant diplomacy. Then there was the Maori newspaper, “Te Hokioi,” published at Ngaruawahia on a press obtained from the Emperor of Austria. The editor may have been a firebrand, hut the compositors were reasonably adept. That an untutored race should within thirty years of outside intrusion he publishing a newspaper suggests that, if intellectual standards are now lower, the decline is not the fault of the Maori.