The Daily News. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1912. TOUCHING TEMPERAMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 183, 20 December 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1912. TOUCHING TEMPERAMENT.

It. is alleged by Anak Stroke that there are as many temperaments in the world aa there are individuals. This is probably a vigorous stretch of imagination, but certainly temperament counts in nationalities. This could not be more fully illustrated than in the case of the Maori. The Maori is a proverbial optimist, who can be turned into the blackest pessimist at a moment's notice. Yesterday, for instance, we were promised a Maori sports gathering at the Recreation Ground, and our native brothers had gone to all sorts of trouble and expense, even to the extent, in some cases, of mortgaging their properties in order that they might provide' the necessary funds to show the pakehi. how a sports meeting ought really to be run. But the fates were unpropitious. In the early forenoon a heavy thunderstorm broke over the town, and the wind blew and the rain fell and beat upon the house of their proposition, and great was the fall thereof. The average hypocrite discerning tlte face of the skies would have prophesied a golden afternoon to follow the querulous protest of the elements in the morning, but our Maori friends, with their ardour too literally damped, decided early to po4t-

pone their gathering to a more propitious date. It is easy, of course, to be wise after the event, tut it does seem a pity that the elaborate preparations of our iriends for a picturesque celebration should have been so unnecessarily nipped in the bud for want of a little weather-wise advice. Like the old folk-lore of our Mother Country, Maori song and 1 Maori story and Maori practice appear to lie falling into a quite unnecessary desuetude, and we cannot cultivate too freely an inclination to present from time to time something of the old Maori spirit, even if we have to have the haka danced in dress suits and the poi dance given "within the internal restrictions of hobble skirts. Under modern conditions the Maori is simply an overgrown child, full of good nature and stepping cheerfully that road which is paved. with good intentions, and, like all other children, he always "means well." But his thoughts, like, the thoughts of youth, are "long, long thoughts," and he is swayed by a mood, or the weather, or a political suggestion, with a '■ charming nonchalance that is almost as pathetic in its irresponsibility as it is delightful in its perennial youthfulness. The Maoris have been put to very considerable expense in arranging the gathering which was to have been held yesterday, but it has only been postponed to a future date. We hope that on January 2 the public will rally ( to their assistance, and disprove the sugj gestion that a postponed gathering is | never a success. In this new world of ours we really cannot afford to do without ■fche element oi bright picturesqueness which is supplied by the native ■ race. "Time driveth onward fast, and in a little while our lives are dumb," so : it behoveth us meantime to help, as far | as lies in. our power, traditions that I threaten to pass away even before vto ourselves can do so;