HALF-CASTE'S PLIGHT.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 January 1910, Page 3

HALF-CASTE'S PLIGHT.

In a paper by Miss Mabel Holmes in the Contemporary Review on the social position of the Maoris occurs this revelation of the interna] troubles of the half-caste. Her informant is the son of a retired naval officer who married a, Maori woman of means. This half-caste s'on was given the best education to be obtained in New Zealand, finishing with Oxford and a Continental tour. At tliirty-live he gave tins description of himself and his plight:"In my opinion the pure Maori living away back from civilisation is still a noble man and it great orator. The nearest approach to an English translation of bis language is to be found in the Psalms of David. He employs the same musical rhythm, and at times' identical metaphor. Rut the half-caste —there has never been born a half-caste of any race who could be trusted, or who could trust himself. Eiinuy, isn't it, to say that when I'm one! "But consider. The mixture of white and colored blood is physiologically and psychologically wrong, and produces a being divided against 'himself, at one moment despising the black in him, at the next resenting and loathing the white. Take me as an example. My life is a hell. I wished to become a doctor, my father, realisiug too late the fa■|b-which bis marriage had eonwould not hear ot such for me—he could not trusJ^^^^^B|^whhTinmy white

by that home-hunger to which every man of color is subject. A wedding, a funeral, occurs' amongst my mother's people; the Maori in me is in honor bound to attend. A feast, a dance, a tangi, a war dance—down goe# culture and th« winte tieneatti a savageaosi bearing all the vices of civilisation to add to its horrors.

"Afterwards, satiated, dehaucnecf, l crawl back to respectability through agonies of self-contempt anil remorse. No, li will be the father of no children to endure such torture as this eternal struggle between my two serve*'."