Neglect of Maori.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 July 1938, Page 6

Neglect of Maori.

“Can you tell me why New Zealanders, on the whole, are unable to speak Maori?” was a question put to a “Waikato Times” representative by Mynheer L. Bleekrode, a Dutch visitor to Hamilton. The reply hazarded was that possibly few had the time to study the complexities of the Native language. “I am inclined to agree that this must be so,” said the visitor, “as I have found that in all young countries the Europeans are too busy making money to take much interest in cultural pursuits.” Donald Sutherland’s Grave. The opinion that better access should be provided to the grave of Donald Sutherland, the man who discovered the famous Sutherland Falls on the West Coast, was expressed by Mr A. F. Clark, a well-known Invercargill business man, who has just returned from a holiday at Milford Sound. The grave, Mr Clark said, lay 50 or 60 yards off the Milford Sound—Hollyford road, or what is to become that road, but it was all fenced off and visitors could not get close to it. The grave was marked by no headstone, and Mr Clark said that, in his opinion, some form of memorial should be erected over it. If the way to the grave was opened, he added, it would be a great attraction for tourists. I

Pensions for Farmers’ Wives. A suggestion that provision should be made for a farmers’ superannuation scheme and for an allowance for farmers’ widows was made by Mrs F. R. Mclntosh, of Ngahinapouri, in a letter received by the Waikato Executive of the Farmers’ Union. Mrs McIntosh said she thought financial arrangements should be made for such a scheme when the guaranteed price was next fixed. Consideration of the matter was deferred until next meeting. The Phantom Rat. It is not quite. clear whether the steamer Canopus has a rat (says the “Christchurch Star-Sun”) or whether the crew are not to be suspected of some mental divagation on the subject. They say that there is a rat on the ship—a veritable quadruped, and not a pimp or a scrounger or a parasite of the- human species—and although the official rat-catcher says that there is no rat on the ship, and that if there ever was it must have gone ashore, the men have left the ship taking with them as evidence a pyjama coat with the very toothmarks on it. This is an agreeable reversal of shipping tradition. Once upon a time it was a bad omen when the rats left the ship. The incident will raise a smile wherever British ships go to sea. Even the pyjamas will appeal to an older generation of sailors who never heard the word in their day.