JOSHUA RUTLAND, ESQ., ON THE MAORI’S PLACE IN HISTORY. 263 
The following elections were announced :— 
Lire Associates :—The Rev. C. E. Sherard and Captain E. G, Farquhar- 
son, R.E. 
AssociaTE :—Lovis J. Rosenberg, Esq., LL.B. 
Hon. Corresponpinc MemsBer :—Mrs. Tyndall. 
The following paper by Joshua Rutland, Esq., on “The Maori’s place 
in History,” was then read by the Secretary in the absence of the 
Author :— 
THE MAOR?S PLACE IN HISTORY, By JosHva 
RUTLAND, Esq. 
S far back as we are able to retrace the history of 
mankind by means of written documents or inscrip- 
tions, we constantly discover certain peoples or nations 
actively engaged in diffusing their particular arts, customs, 
and institutions, often violently imposing them on their less 
powerful, or as they are wont to style them, less civilized 
contemporaries. At this work of civilization the peoples of 
Northern Europe and their descendants in other parts of the 
world now occupy the place which was formerly held by 
Arabs, Turks, Romans, Greeks, Phcenicians, and a host of 
others who have either entirely passed away or fallen so far 
behind the mark as to be numbered by their more pro- 
gressive neighbours amongst those who require civilizing. 
Even in places of which no written history has come down 
to us, or where the art of writing has never been known, 
we discover evidences of this same law of progress, or facts 
which it alone can explain. Thus the peopling of Eastern 
Polynesia, the presence there of foreign cultivated plants 
and the domestic animals when Europeans first entered the 
region, as well as the monuments scattered throughout the 
numerous groups, especially those of Easter Island, can only 
be accounted for by the existence of a prehistoric people, 
or peoples, imbued with the same spirit of adventure that 
