MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 August 1939, Page 5

MAORI MEMORIES

OUTRAGE. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) “Maori Outrages" wore the usual headings to European and Colonial newspapers about sixty or seventy years ago. Just think out the reason before justifying this. Imagine the invasion of the most ancient peace-lov-ing nation in the world’s history. China whose women were described by Dr. Morrison as “the most virtuous on God’s Earth,” and that after seven years residence among them as Bril isl- - Think, too, of his opinion of the Japs, their cruel invader today—“the Japanese women have one great virtue—industry, and that industry is Vice.” Can wo regard the pro sent defence of these happy, healthy, peaceful, and industrious people as “an outrage?” Consider for a moment the condition' and the hospitality of the Maori chiefs to our fathers and mothers less than a century ago. Think of our dosing them with alcoholic liquor, the deadly curse of the motor world today, then robbing these trusting hosts of their lands and homes for less than a tenth of its value, which we taught them to waste in degrading themselves and their wives and children in drink. Add to this the sacred Maori law of Utu, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Look today upon their penury and despair in contrast to the condition in which wo found them when they lavished upon “the pioneers of civilisation" the best of everything they possessed . Will our Minister of Public Works use one of his bulldozers to destroy those 1,200 deadly spots on our Life's Highway to save the Maori and our own youths and maids from the same condition?