THE OTAGO MAORIS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 298, 16 October 1873, Page 5

THE OTAGO MAORIS.

In the Legislative Council on August 27,, the Hon. Captain Fraser made the following remarks on thjs subject <-? Wb,en h.e grat heoarne aoquainted with that portion of the Natives of the Middle Island, in 1855, they were then morally on a level with their European neighbours. That was to say, they gambled, they drank, they blasphemed, they lied, and they fought. Shortly after that time a great change took pl&ca in them. Seeing they wera, entirely 'neglected' by the Provincial and General 'Governments, they framed laws "for {heir own guidancjg. They created a creed, the dv« performance of which had' worked a gr.ea.t change in the Natives of three qf ton.? of the principal settlements in %c Middle Island. .For many | years' past the Maoris of Moeraki, Waikouaiti, and Timarii had not drunk, they had not gambled, they had not blasphemed, they had not lied, they had not fought, and they had lived in brotherly love and affection one to another. They asked a blessing before eating, and in the morning they had prayers before going to work, and they worked very hard, for he was in the habit of employing them on the station. After a hard day's work, after shearing probably 130 sheep, he had seen a Native jump into a boat, row out .on a lake, and commence singing from joyousness. These people wished to withdraw ftonj ' all association with the European rape, and they asked the Government to- be allowed to retire into the desert. For fear of their ohil- | dren coming into contaot with tbe European children, of the nineteenth century in New Zealand, they had proposed to retire to the Fork* of Lakes dawea and Wanaka, where, by putting a fence across the peninsula, they would be as completely isolated as if they were on an island. They could keep sheep enough to give them a revenue of Lo',ooo a : year. The Natives would take that land or ] rock, because it was nothing else, containing about 50,000 acres, and cry " quits" with, Government. He did not kno^be amount, with arrears, which the Government' owed these unfortunate " men for unfulfilled promises, but it Would amount to ten times th^e value of that rock. Besides, our railways, were coming in upon the reserves of thpse. Natives, $*c other, day an attempt VM

mad* to carry a railway through the cemetery at Waikouaiti, and probably had it been pushed, even those poor Maoris of the Middle Island would have rebelled. They would not have seen the graves of their ancestors desecrated, as was proposed to be done by our surveyors. At any rate, the railways were now coming in upon them, and destroying their privacy, and they wished to retire amongst themselves.