WORK FOR THE MAORI.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 136, 17 September 1910, Page 4

WORK FOR THE MAORI.

Many Maoris are idle through force of circumstances. Few really care whether they are idle or not, and many of the tears that are shed about our poor brown brother are of the crocodile variety. ' Any lazy pakeha is ready enough to 'heave the rock and scorn at the "taihoa" Maori, tout it can be proved that wherever the Maori of normal health has 'been faced with an interesting task, he has carried it out. In various parts of Taranaki the Maori has turned his hand to industrial pursuits, and it is found that wherever he has done so he has equalled his pakeha neighbors in application, interest and a natural desire to "get on." The Maori knows that if he does not work he will die, that tills is the history of every race, and that lis salvation lies in mere hard physical and mental struggle. He thas now nothing to fight, arid so he must work. If (he gospel of work could be preached to every Maori, and if every Maori were a convert, there would be no problem about the future of one of the finest physical and intellectual races on earth. The acceptance of any modern method by any Maori is evidence that he at least desires to be equal in insight, industry and "up-to-dateness" with the pakeha. So that the Maori gentle* man at Waitara who has just installed a modern dairy plant with milking machines is a benefactor to his race. If such a , one can induce his fellows to also adopt modern methods, and to ibecome converts to the greatest of all gospels—that of work—he will be doing more for the race than all the talk that ever was spun in Parliament.