464 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



All over the world we see evidences abundant, clear, and indisput- 

 able, that races of mankind like individuals have their birth, theii' period 

 of growth ; some are fertile and give birth to other races ; some races are 

 sterile, merely propagating themselves for a time, but in either case in- 

 variably like individuals beginning to die and then becoming extinct. Such 

 a race is the Maori, a small race inhabiting a strange land, multiplying 

 rapidly, giving birth to one weakly offspring, the Morioris, and now steadily 

 dying, just as do individuals. The race is "run out," it is effete; seems 

 thoroughly ■ worn out, and its approaching death has been hastened by 

 the struggles with a newer and a fresher race. The races of man- 

 kind are like individuals in this respect, each has its birth, its matu- 

 rity, begets fresh races or individuals, and then slowly or rapidly decays. 

 They die out just as certainly as do individuals. We as individuals have 

 a certain time, bar accidents, to grow, increase, multiply, and decrease. 

 I believe that races have the same, and that in time all the existing races, 

 no matter how flourishing, will die out : in some instances leaving a pro- 

 geny, in others none. The public settle the question of the dying out of 

 the Maori race in an off-hand manner, by saying " the black man always 

 speedily disappears before the white ;" but that the advent of the white man 

 alone is the sole cause is disproved by the dying out of the Dyaks in parts 

 where the whites have barely reached ; so, too, in other islands of the Pacific 

 where the white race can have had at the utmost a trivial effect. Un- 

 doubtedly we do speedily kill the black races in all countries sufficiently 

 cool for us to live and thrive in. 



The rapid decrease of the Maoris is a startling fact when we recollect 

 that for the last fifteen years they have had no devastating wars : that of late 

 they have been living in peace among themselves, and in the South Island 

 have not fought the Europeans or among themselves for thirty years. 

 Formerly the tribes were always at war with adjacent tribes, and when not 

 actually fighting were continually destroying each others crops. Formerly 

 their food was hard to get, and poor when got : now the supplies are regular 

 and far more nutritious. They all possess ample means. They never die 

 of starvation. They can all obtain ample clothing. The struggle for exist- 

 ence is among them far less severe than it is amongst ourselves, yet our 

 race, by natural means, apart h-om immigration, is increasing as rapidly as 

 the other is decreasing. Moreover, there seems now to be less chance than 

 ever of any union of the races. Half-castes appear to be far fewer propor- 

 tionately than in the early days of the colony ; and those few who do not 

 revert to the semi-savage state, but become civilized, are an unproductive 

 race. In the course of a few generations the Maoris will die out and leave 

 no trace of their union with the whites. 



