Maori-Pakeha Relationshipships in New Zealand

Abstract

"NEW ZEALAND is reputed to have the happiest race relationships in the world. Visitors from overseas tell us that this is so. The Maori, our indigenous people, and the Pakeha, the Maori word for white man, do live together in our land very happily as compared with what obtains in many other nations. This is due in large degree to the high quality of the Maori people themselves. When the white man first came to this country they had no metals for tools or weapons and were in that particular stone-age pepple. They had no written language. They had no animals for food or clothing, except the dog and the rat which they brought with them in their migration from the Pacific islands. Nevertheless they had attained a high standard of culture, artistic accomplishment and community life. As navigators and warriors they were unsurpassed among primitive people. These qualities, though sometimes endangered by civilisation, have by no means been lost to them"