G.—s.

W. W. BIRD.]

99

time he does not object to the introduction of manual and technical instruction ?—He does not directly object, but the amount he is willing to take is very small. 191. Mr. Ngata.] He is not prepared to forego matriculation subjects?— No. George Hogben further examined. 192. The Chairman.] I understand you wish to make some further observations?—l wish to say something as to the point in regard to which Mr. Bird was not prepared to set forward the ideas of the Department. He spoke for himself in regard to the return of Maori boys and girls to the Maoris. He expressed his own opinion that they were lost if they did not go back. The nursing question is one phase of the subject, and the most important phase of it. I think as far as I am concerned that opinion needs some qualification. We know the process that has taken place in Canada in the course of time with the first nation of the Iroquois. That is th most successful Native experiment ever made, and it took a century and a quarter to carry out. You can hardly now. distinguish the licquois that- survive from the rest of the population in Canada, unless you are an ethnologist and distinguish faces. I anticipate that the same thing will happen in New Zealand, and that socially and civilly, if not racially, there will be a merging of the Maori and the pakeha, and I think very likely to the advantage of both. That must take place gradually, so it is inevitable that in the course of the process some of them who are trained will go into towns and will live with Europeans. But if they did that in any large number it would be a loss. It is not our object in training them. Those who are prepared to merge with the European population now can go with Europeans to European schools. Our object in having separate schools is that they may go back to their own people. Now, with regard to boys, certain difficulties do not occur; but with regard to nurses —I do not think one should shrink from stating the real fact—the ideas of the relations between the sexes among the Maoris and among the English are to some extent different. You have got to take very great care as to how you allow the women of one race to go among the people of another race where different ideas prevail as to the relations between the sexes, and until the ground is prepared for them you will have danger. That is the fundamental reason why you should not encourage them until you have prepared therii by education in every way to fend for themselves. They are quite capable of doing so if prepared for it. I am perfectly convinced of that. We have had plenty of examples of it. Maori girls must enter hospitals in the same way as European nurses do. That is to say, if they were candidates for apprenticeship, and entered hospitals in open competition in the same way as English-speaking nurses do, then, of course, they would be just as free to remain in the hospitals if the hospitals would take them. Our experience has been that they have been rarely taken by the hospitals, because even with all the pledges that we can give we can find up to the present only three or four hospitals willing to take them on such arrangements as can be made possible for them to enter. We have now made arrangements in the most definite form for these Maori girls, and we hope to get an increasing number of hospitals to take them, and also get an increasing number of nurses. There is no legal bond, but the Government gives assistance to them, and in telling them that we will give assistance in sending them to the hospital we put a clause in the letter to the effect that we expect them to go afterwards and work among their own people. There is no other pledge, and no other enforcement than to remind them of that pledge—and to remind an honourable Maori, and most of them have a high sense of honour in that way —to remind them of a pledge of that kind is quite as good as to remind a European of a bond, and that pledge will be just as effective as a bond. The justification for it is that from the beginning they are getting Government help. By the time they fulfil that pledge we hope that there will be cottage hospitals, and cottage hospitals also among the Maori people in Maori districts, in which we can put, perhaps in the first instance, European and Maori nurses side by side, working amongst their own people, and gradually the Maoris will become more akin to Europeans in their ideas. In that way we shall be helping them by teaching them to help themselves. We begin by taking the probationers to the hospitals—as probationers or day pupils. They will still board, say, at Hukarere, in Napier, or at the Queen Victoria School for Maori girls in Auckland, while they are day pupils at the hospitals. After that they will become resident probationers at the hospitals, and go through the same course of instruction as European nurses. Then they will go the maternity homes, whenever possible, in order to qualify as nurses in that department, and thus get certificates for all parts of their work. I hope that by the time they are qualified the cottage homes will be ready for them. I might here throw out a hint about the reading of Maori, because this is a question that has a-risen again and again with regard to languages. If anybody has been taught to'read in one language and knows the significance of the characters, he has no difficulty in reading in a very short time in those same characters any other language that he can speak. That is a well known fact- It requires no definite teaching as long as the characters are the same. For instance, I fpoke what little foreign languages I knew as a boy for a good many years before I ever saw anything of them in writing, and I had no difficulty in reading them because I could read English. 193. Mr. Hogg.] Do you not think it would be a great accomplishment for the Maori to be able to both read and speak fluently the Maori and the English language as well?— When he has learned both, it is a good thing for him to translate from one to the other. If he has learned to read English and can speak Maori, it is not really necessary that he should.be taught to read Maori. 194. Are not the Maoris under a great disadvantage in having to employ interpreters when they wish to communicate with the European ?—My experience is exactly the opposite. 195. Are you not aware of the fact that there is a great difference in interpreters, and that there are very few really good ones? —I know that. 196. Is that not a thing that ought to be rectified by the Native schools?—No; I do not think the Native schools should be a training-place for interpreters.