SIR ROBERT STOUT'S VIEWS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 6 May 1913, Page 4

SIR ROBERT STOUT'S VIEWS.

i "■' ■■»«■— m^mm ——■■■■ n ill » --^j». In a very interesting lecture in Auckland last week oil "The Brotherhood of Man," Sir Robert Stout expressed some views on the Maori problem which, in the North Island, where most of the Maoris live, will not, in the opinion of the Christhurch Press, be widely approved. He argued that the Maori, "with only a hundred years in which to develop the faculties used by the English in their dealings with the Native race," could iiiiot, and should not, be treated as the business' equal of the white man. The pakeluis "should ' not ask the Maori to judge for himself what he should do; they should Judge for him, and not spend their time trying to get hold of his lands." The capacity of the Maori to look after himself is a matter upon which there in much disagreement. Those who would have the 'Maori kept in statu pupillari must not ask that their policy should bo enforced at the cost of keeping the wide weed-infested wastes of Native lands secure from cultivation and development by Europeans. The wise Native land policy is that which recognises that the welfare of the Maori and the profitable occupation of Maori lands are not mutually exclusive aims. They have hitherto practically been so treated. Nobody wishes to repudiate the nation's duty towards the Maori race, but Maori self-reliance and industry cannot best be devoloped by a policy based on Maori dependence.