DECLINE OF THE MAORI RACE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7758, 9 March 1905, Page 3

DECLINE OF THE MAORI RACE.

AX INTEKESTIXG INTERVIEW (Per Prcsa Association.) WAN'GANt'I, March 8. A. Herald representative has obuaincd valuable information concerning tho ■decline of the Maori race and the steps suggested to be taken to improve their condition, from Mr C. W. Grace, teacher of the Pamoana School, one of the most successful institutions in the colony, in connection with which the Government over twelve months ago started a village scheme, which is now threatened to be dropped. The have sent a pathetic letter to the Premier, appealing to him to coni-> tinue the scheme, saying : "We are dying fast, and want you to show us how to live and work, so that we may not all go down to the grave." Mr Grace says the proportion of deaths of natives and their suddenness are appalling, often only one or two in a family of ten children surviving, and he savs nothing else can lie expected so lung as newlyborn 'frfants are allowed to breathe the poison in the wharepunis. void of ventilation, and reeking' with tobacco smoke, whilst large nniii-1 nuniljers of infants were annually taken away from their mothers, and | adopted by women ignorant of the j wed of cleanliness of fond and ot I surroundings. Mr Grace says had a , " portion of the money devoted to education been sj»ent on bringing the natives out of the pahs and get- | ting them to house themselves in J-. well-ventilated dwellings, to attend SP to the laws of cleanliness, and to be constant ami intelligent toilers, g-N moro real good work would have li£C % been done, Tho land is the place ggjjifbr the Maori, and intelligent aclivig|s£ty. wholesome surroundings, and ftjffiptjjg ever-present knowledge that he ■Bar subject to a law that, can reach BSgRMNi': strike him are factors that Ha|stoii4 Trill, saw kirn trow rusting