252 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
Various schemes for extensive colonization were attempted, but 
it was not until 1840 that a British governor proclaimed the 
sovereignty of Queen Victoria over the whole of New Zealand, 
which was regarded as a sort of dependency administered by the 
government of Australia. In 1841, however, New Zealand was 
declared an Independent Colony, and in 1907, by proclamation 
of King Edward, its status became that of a Dominion. 
At present theree are 52,751 Maoris (including half-castes) in 
New Zealand. Unlike the Fijians they have shown little reluct- 
ance about racial admixture with the whites and I was told that 
there are now very few if any who ean claim to be of absolutely 
pure Maori stock. Hence the race is becoming rapidly assimilated 
and thus will not be destroyed, but absorbed; a fate surely pre- 
ferable to extinction which threatens so many of the Polynesian 
peoples. A number of the Colonials now have more or less Maori 
blood and are not ashamed of their descent. 
Although there have been prolonged wars between the Maoris 
and the colonists in the past, it seems that a good many of the 
native tribes were not hostile to the whites, and it is doubtful if 
thera were more than half of them at war with the colonials at 
any one time. Indeed a considerable portion of them sided with 
the conquering race on each occasion when war was waged. 
Maori political status seems quite satisfactory at present as they 
are given the ballot and have their own representative in Par- 
liament. Indeed the Hon. Sir M. Pomare, apparently a full- 
blooded Maori and a strikingly handsome man, is a member of 
the Executive Council of New Zealand and representative of the 
native race. This is in accord with the universal practice in the 
British Colonial possessions and seems to work well. Of course 
here as elsewhere there have been grievous injustices and some- 
times ecruelties, in times past, but present relations between the 
races are entire amicable. There seems to be little of the sharp 
color line so much emphasized between the black and white races 
in the United States and so the intermixture of Maoris and whites 
goes on almost insensibly with little of the unfortunate effect 
which we associate with the idea. The fact that the Maoris do not 
wear their original native garb, except for picture post-card pur- 
poses, also helps to do away with racial antipathies. The two 
peoples seem to enter with enthusiasm into the matter of athletic 
sports, one of the strong points with the British the world over. 
