‘MAN OF TWO WORLDS’

Te Ao Hou, Spring 1954, Page 19

‘MAN OF TWO WORLDS’ Review by KAATA To join those who have already tested the fertility of the Maori historical field is yet another European—J. F. Cody, with his Man of Two Worlds, a biography of Sir Maui Pomare. The author must be given credit for his sympathetic and understanding treatment and, indeed, his appreciation of a very great man who, as a humanitarian first and foremost, found a satisfactory way of bending politics to form the mould of a more or less permanent foundation for health measures for the Maori. Sir Maui differed from his Maori colleagues in parliament in that he chose an independent course rather than hoist his colours to the Liberal mast, and his political life was not without disharmony. In the final analysis it becomes perfectly plain that politics to him was only a means to an end—and the end was his ardent determination to arrest the decline of his race. It is undeniable that Sir Maui's efforts as the first Maori health officer and later as Minister of Health, as a member of the remarkable Young Maori Party, and as a Doctor of Medicine, won for him a very special place in both the Maori and European circles of his day; but in the opinion of this reviewer the author has not done full justice to a unique episode in the political as well as the national pattern of New Zealand life. Readers will remain indebted to the author for the hitherto unpublished account of the first missionary effort of the Te Aute schoolboys to carry the new gospel of healthy living into the homes of the Maori people. This section of the biography amounts to a contribution by the late Rev. Reweti Kohere, himself an author