OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 June 1939, Page 5

OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

OUR MAORI BRETHREN (To the Editor.) Sir—The recent announcement by the Rev E. J. Rich, Vicar of St. Matthew’s, that by December next Bishop Bennett would be sending to Wairarapa as deacon a promising young ex-siudent-of Te Aute College (at present undergoing final ecclesiastical tuition at St John’s College, Auckland) as an especial racial inducement for our Maori people to ally themselves actively with the European section of worshippers attending the various Anglican churches in the Wairarapa (and to take part with his people in their social gatherings as well) is' a most welcome item of news to all concerned. The Vicar’s further pronouncement, that the young Maori student will be received on equal status tferms, and have the fullest co-operation of, the whole of the Anglican clergy and vestry throughout the Wairarapa, means all that it says, and augurs well -for the future happiness of our local Wairarapa natives, too long suffering a mild form of social ostracism (as well as adult religious neglect) notwithstanding their constant willingness to aid each and every good pakeha cause coming under their notice from time to time. •

Gone, alas, for most part, our local native people’s ability to erect new churches of their own out of the yearly diminishing patrimony of recent years; or even renovate the few remaining meeting houses in which an older generation took such historic pride. It is therefore up to all Christian people, in the Wairarapa and elsewhere. to invite our well-educated (as well behaved) young Maori adult people to link up not only in the church but social life of the community wherever possible, and thereby restore to Maori life that mana which has been gradually wrested from them over a long period of years of landlessness. At the request of To Ore Ore native friends, greatly chagrined at reading in the provincial news column of a Wellington publication that only for Te Ore Ore Maori settlement Masterton might have extended itself in that direction in lieu of building in "the hollow” it finds itself today, I directed editorial attention to an unwitting injustice done to our Maori people (despite its old pakeha source of backing) and, failing any ‘-retraction” of the statement, it might not be cut of place, in your journal, Sir, to put the matter in its true light, as far as Te Ore Ore settlement history is concerned, by at least repeating the more charitable, and truthful, views thereof which (in 1396) appeared in the pages of that quite reliable publication “The Cyclopaedia of New Zealand.” which inter alia reads: —

"Maoris are fairly plentiful in and about Masterton, and quite a number of them have contracted European habits and conditions ... At the native settlement of Te Ore Ore—about 3 miles on the way to Tinui and just, beyond the Ruamahanga bridge—all the houses are of European architecture, and a few of them are stylish villa residences, tastefully furnished and decorated, and particularly clean and tidy They own their own land,

keep horses and cows, cultivate both fruits and flowers, and in most respects comfort, themselves after the manner of-the middle classes of colonials. . Sufficient refutation, I take it, of at least two charges against our Te Ore Ore natives: First, that by 1890. no sites for European residences had been despoiled by native encroachments upon them (if ever they existed) or the class of building generally adopted by such as did dare to build homes for themselves in this area of tribal territory; and last, that Masterton would never have been built other than upon the ballotted-for sections purchased under the Small Farm Settlement Scheme of 1853-54, however “ideal” for residential or other purpose, old pakeha informants of the said journal voicing the opinion may consider those ■-ideal” Te Ore Ore sites he has in mind. With the passing away of that noble native gentleman—Chieftain Tai Awhio Te Tau—and his fitting burial place not far distant from a ,Te Ore Ore settlement scheme of gl'eat promise when his also deceased younger chieftain brother (Puhara Te Tau) fathered the scheme, departs its once morepristine place in Maori history than we find it today; and yet, despite intervening years of elemental decay and usual ravages of time, Te Ore Ore and its historic meeting house may yet be destined —with timely Government assistance by way of new buildings and a little housing renovation —to remain (as ever intended) the rightful heritage and home of our local Maori people, young and old. —I am, etc., N. J. BENNINGTON. Masterton, June 6, 1939.