MAORI & EUROPEAN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 April 1938, Page 8

MAORI & EUROPEAN

MINGLING OF TWO RACES. A GRADUAL PROCESS. The mingling of the Maori and European peoples in New Zealand was referred to by Dr I. L. G. Sutherland, Professor of Philosophy at Canterbury University College, in a lecture on the Maori people given under the auspices of the Workers’ Educational Association recently. Though the total Maori population was increasing rapidly, Dr Sutherland said it was doubtful whether the number of those of pure Maori descent was increasing, and at the present time he thought no more than half the Maori population was of pure Maori blood. The remainder represented varying degrees of mixed racial descent. This mingling of the two races was by no means a recent thing and was, of course, likely to proceed. “The pure Maori population will gradually give way to a population of mixed bloods,” said Dr Sutherland. “This is inevitable. But it does not mean, as is often assumed, that the Maoris are going to be rapidly absorbed into the general population of this country. The process of mingling and merging will be gradual.

“Much evidence could be brought to show that the Maori people is likely to remain, and even increasingly to become an integral and distinct, if minor, element in the life of New Zealand. There are two living races in this country and two there are likely to be for a long time to come. Nor is the one a decadent or museum race or a mere tourist attraction,” the lecturer added.

Answering a question about the Maori language, Dr Sutherland said he did not think it could be kept alive and it would probably disappear before the people themselves did. Every effort was being made to prolong the life of the language by introducing it into Maori secondary and primary schools and the university and matriculation syllabuses, but it would not last indefinitely.