The future of the Maoris So percent of the Maoris are under 21. Th: sufficient 1 quarter of t Maori population. is. Shor! or one cre eo) d more Maoris are ne cities to work. I oing co .4 The Maori birth rate is double that of the Pakeha (white In 4€ he Maori popu- tation: ¢ of New Zealand will be ] 500,000 — double what n the Pakeha first facts would merely be sting statistics but for that social and econ- omic equality does not exist for the.Maori. Maori and essential ¢ gen- The struggle for ; quality is an class’ percentage of ‘stal, the propor- —— women and girls drin nking and soliciting in shab- by hotels, the number of Maorj scabs and the number of Maori volunteers for anti-indépend- 2 forces, such as the Korean and Malayan Squad- e lt very to Say thc Maori is an inferior i the easy 3ut this is a superficial and unscientific judgment. It takes no account of the excellent work being done for and by Maoris in many spheres. It takes no account of the between a modern in- sg zed society and the of a stone age society. Modern research shows that no race is inferior in either in- telligence or physique, only in knowledge. Pas hen the Pakeha arrived in Zealand he brought capit- n face to face with primi- And much of F this primitive communism still exists among the Maori today, particularly in the countryside. Hence it poses problems for the s Maori who leaves the of communal living selfish chaos of capi- he cities. this communal and in the past tand the ices and he Pakeha arrived, garded work as a and hon- Even the ] sir § share of man- Each member of e had certain tasks of to the tribe as a whole ere was no class that ‘nish Y £ aS oO profited from the work of others. This ree welfare of the comm faori women of N his own timetable — set hours of work were unknown. As long as the task was com- pleted on time, the Maori com- munal worker could relax or attend to other matters when- ever he liked. When the Pakeha arrived the Maori rapidly adapted his communal system to the im- proved tools and methods of production. In many places this communal living persists today; in several, modern but communal production methods are still used. A young Maori coming from a mutual welfare community to one of naked self-interest without any knowledge of the class. struggle or class organ- ization, can hardly be blamed for his reaction of contempt for city life and his refusal *o take it seriously. Whereas the early British worker showed his fear and contempt of machines and cap- italism by destroying ‘them, the Maori from the country often. shows his contempt by taking it all light-heartedly or by degenerating and going with the current. Experience has shown that once an unders{anding of mod- ern society and its class strug- gle comes to the Maori, he is as staunch a member of the working cl: as any Pakeha. Experience has shown | that when trade union organizers explain working class _ prin- ciples to the Maori who has been recruited for a seab job, he more often than not joins the struggle. The hundreds of militant Maoris in New Zealand unions today pr It is an essential task for the working class to remove prejudices from both Maori and Pakeha and strengthen the ranks of the labor movement. the Maori is the cause of the working cla The cause of Jew y Zealand in a ceremonial dance. and the cause of the working class is that of New Zealand. Stand of the New Zealand Communist party is defined in this section of its program, New Zealand’s Road to So- cialism. But there still remains the particular problems of the Maori people. Their position in New Zealand requires the fullest democratic and _ the most complete equality. Their culture and their tri- bal links have been almost destroyed by the impact of capitalism, and their language is tending to die out. They are discriminated against for hous- ing and for jobs, and would be the worst hit in another slump. The Maori people need more than nominal equality. They need full social equality based on mutual respect, and on com- pletely equal rights and facili- ties in education, housing (where special attention is needed), medical services and jobs. The use of their lan- guage must be encouraged, and all facilities made available for the re-development of, and fullest expression of, their own culture. In certain areas of New Zea- land, where the Maori people predominate, they must have the right of determining the course of their own economic and cultural development, and their relationship io the na- tion as a whole. They will be assisted to forge their own fu- ture by the provision of special financial aid for capital invest- ment. All outstanding land claims will be settled in the interest of the Maori people’s future development. Racial discrimination will be made a criminal offense, and Maoris and Pakehas will be equal in their opportunity in all aspects of life in New Zea- land. Literary portrait of armchair philosopher nae wae to yourself a young- grandson of a Victorian prime minister, descended from one of Britain’s great Whig families that played a progressive part in their day. That he has been brought up to assume that all the good things of life were theirs for the taking, and separated by an almost infinite gulf from the wrokers who carried the Vic- torian aristocracy on _ their backs. Such in the beginning was the man depicted in Bertrand Russell, The Passionate Scep- tic, by Alan Wood. To him and his contemporaries British history had fitly culminated in the rule of the Russells and their kind. As a young man _ Russell went to Berlin and studied the German socialist movement. He didn’t like it. There were dull meetings in horrid, stuffy beer halls, and speeches im- pregnated with Karl Marx. He was interested enough to read the whole of,Das Kapital. But the theory of class struggle repelled him. Marxist Socialism was “in- tolerant” and “sectarian.” The only hope for the socialists lay in cooperation with the bourgeoisie. Otherwise the capitalists would unite against them, even at the price of mili- tary dictatorship? Curiously enough, some So- cial Democratic leaders at the time were reasoning in the same way. The “revisionists” under Bernstein, Sis thought the time had come to shed the class struggle and cooperate with the bourgeoisie. They converted a majority of the party; and we know what happened. When war broke out in 1914, the Social Democratic party betrayed every principle of socialism and democracy and supported the imperialist war. xt xt tt Meanwhile Russell had made a reputation as a philosopher, but to my mind his philosophy has always suffered from his refusal to throw himself into BERTRAND RUSSELL When it comes to the point he is on the side of man the world of action. It is the philosophy of a man who has not had to work for a living. This weakness shows itself in the case of Russell in a sort of split-mindedness. No one can altogether avoid action. Action’ involves’ judging one thing good and another thing bad. But according .to Russell, no logical argument can prove that anything is good or bad. As an armchair philosopher he considers all such judg- ments irrational and emotion- al. Yet as a man of action, when he condescends to be one, he is as ready to call you a scoun- drel as anyone else. His be- havior is thus a_ perpetual refutation of his philosophy. bes xt xt 3 The First World War shock- ed Russell out of ‘his detach- ment. It is to his credit that when he found that the Liberal imperialists had committed the people behind their backs to 4 murderous European war, he reacted vigorously against it. Not that he fully understood the issues. He was not an anti-imperialist on principle. But he kicked at the price to be paid, took the pacifist side, was dismissed from his lec- tureship at Camrbidge, and went to prison for an anti-war article written for the No-Con- scription Fellowship. After that there was no fu- ture for him as a Liberal. He became a Socialist. He visited Moscow ‘in 1920 and had to concede, even at that early date, that there was hardly any drunkenness, “in- finitely less” prostitution than in any other capital and much “well-ordered activity.” But it was “ugly and brutal,” and made him “infinitely unhap- ” py. ; He owned that his aversion might be due to the fact that he himself had never know? hunger and want, and that in Russia the methods of the Bol- sheviks were “probably more or less unavoidable.” What is astounding is that Russell reprinted this book 1m 1949 “virtually without altera- tion.” No credit given for the building of socialism, for the — diffusion of literacy over @— sixth of the earth’s surface, ~ for the hurling back of Hitler. © No credit for anything. Russell never ceased to ve at bottom a Victorian individ- ualist. In the end, at 82 years of age, he was shaken into ac- ~ horrible — tion by a thing more than the First or even the See: ond World War. The hydrogen bomb of which he had scientific knowledg? enough to see all the implica- tions forced him to broadcast an appeal for peaceful coexis= ” : tence, and to organize a joint manifesto of world on the danger. When it comes to the point ~ 3ertrand Russell is on the side of man. ARCHIBALD ROBERTSON MAY 17, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 12 scientists fe