221 
disappears before the formalities of civilization. The hospitable 
savage becomes a calculating and deliberating trader; our dress 
renders him stiff and awkward, and our food makes him unhealthy. 
Compared with the fresh and full vigour, with which the Anglo- 
Saxon race is spreading and increasing, the Maori is the weaker 
party, and thus he is the loser in the endless “struggle for existence.” 
In conversations about the natives I frequently heard the opinion 
expressed, not only by missionaries and Government officers, but 
also by independent colonists , that in the colonization of New Zea- 
land special pains were taken, to make up, in the treatment of 
the Maoris , for the sins committed against the aborigines of Australia 
and Tasmania. And, in fact, the history of New Zealand furnish 
plenty of cases of noble-hearted men , who with truly selfsacrificing 
charity and devotion espoused the cause of the natives , leaving 
nothing undone to make those uncouth, but highly gifted savages 
Christians and civilized men. And it is equally true, that also 
the English Government, with regard to the Maoris, has pursued 
a policy quite different from that shown in most of the other co- 
lonies. 1 Yet, if we inquire after the result of those philanthropic 
efforts, we shall have to acknowledge, that the result is scarcely 
any better than there, where the European in the treatment of 
helpless natives has enforced the right of the stronger in the most 
merciless, most brutal, and sometimes horribly bloody manner. — 
The Maoris too are dying out. 
The official document which gives the latest statistical accounts 
concerning the Maori population on both islands , 2 calculates at the 
same time, from the rate of decrease of the native population, the 
approaching time, when it will have altogether vanished from the 
1 I am by no means a pessimist, who sees in all that merely an egoistical 
act of necessity or of shrewds, calculating prudence, because the Maoris are an in- 
telligent, energetic race. An English writer on New Zealand says literally: U I have 
long since come to the conclusion, that the modern Englishman is as cruel and un- 
principled a scoundrel as the world has ever seen. — In simple truth, we pay the 
Maori large sums for his land, because he is an acute and powerful savage, we 
swindle the Australian out of his birthright, because he is simple and helpless.” 
2 Observations on the State of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of New Zealand by 
F. D. Denton. Auckland 1859. 
