MAORI GRATITUDE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 July 1939, Page 5

MAORI GRATITUDE

FORTUNATE TO BE UNDER BRITISH FLAG.

SIR A. NGATA'S TESTIMONY.

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

AVELLINGTON, This Day

The reason why, in spite of everything that had happened over the past 100 years since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the Maori people would enter whole-heartedly into the celebrations of the centennial year of the Dominion was given by the Hon. Sir Apirana Ngata, when, speaking in the Address-in-Reply debate in the House of Representatives last night. The Maoris were grateful that they had come under the British flag and not any other, he said. “When considering the question of defence and what is happening abroad,” said Sir Apirana, "the one fact that the Maori lias to be thankful for, in spite of everything that has happened in the last 100 years, is that instead of coming under some other flag the Maoris in New Zealand came under the British flag. When we look abroad and compare our lot with that of other native races, we must be thankful that our fortunes have been in this country, under the British flag, and with the least unsympathetic of the representatives of Western civilisation.”