page break

Foreword

During the past year the Maori people and their affairs have been much more than usually prominent, and the European majority in New Zealand, for the most part little interested in or conscious of the Maori minority, has been made aware of it in several quite different ways. The report of the Native Affairs Commission, the consequent resignation of Sir Apirana Ngata as Native Minister, the debate in Parliament on the report and the discussion of it and its outcome by the newspapers of the Dominion have of course been the immediate and obvious causes of this greater awareness of Maori matters. But, significant as these things are, there are wider and more important issues which have for some time been becoming apparent, and which make it likely that more will and should be heard of the Maori people and their affairs than has been the case in the immediate past. These issues arise out of the growth in numbers of the Maori population, a most hopeful change in their outlook and a marked renewal of their life. The situation at the present time calls for a greater degree of understanding between Maori and pakeha than now exists. Much goodwill towards the Maori people has recently been expressed, and there is a growing interest in their welfare, but, important as these factors are, they are not sufficient without full understanding and are liable to fail in their complete effect for lack of it. The Maori people are seldom effectively vocal so far as New Zealand as a whole is concerned, and the result is that the real inwardness of their situation and the real nature of their problems are but little understood.

I believe and will endeavour to show that the present is a most critical moment for the Maori people, and that more page break complete understanding, and the active goodwill based upon it are most urgently needed and fully deserved. For several years I have been making a study of the Maori people, as they were before the advent of Europeans and since, endeavouring to analyse the contact of the two peoples in New Zealand down to the present day, to appreciate the effect on the Maori people of the passing of so much of their own way of life and to observe their adaptation of European civilization to their own needs. This pamphlet is frankly occasional, offered at the present moment in the hope of aiding in a more general understanding of a complex human situation.