Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/61

met Taiaroa and other influential Southern chiefs, and exchanged pledges of peace and good will. The reoccupation of Kaiapoi, just before the arrival of the Canterbury Pilgrims, tended to thin the Maori population of this district, which has been still further reduced by the fatal effects of European diseases, rendered more destructive than they would otherwise have been, from the Maoris having been forced to crowd together on the limited areas reserved for them; where, surrounded by constantly accumulating heaps of pollution, deprived of the healthy excitement of hunting and travel, deprived of all political influence, without any fixed aim or object in life, a prey to ceaseless regrets and chronic depression of spirits, they have fallen easy victims to every form of epidemic that has appeared amongst them.

Knowing the disorganised state into which Maori society had fallen just before colonisation began, the public are too ready to credit that event with whatever improvement may be apparent in the present condition of the Natives, and to conclude that the Maoris must be in every way better off than they could have been without the settlement of the country. But, as a matter of fact, it was not to colonisation, but to their own acceptance of Christianity, that the Maoris owed the restoration of peace and order. When the first colonists arrived, the Maoris were a Christian nation. Without saying a word in disparagement of the colonists, who as a whole have honestly endeavored to treat the Maori fairly, it cannot be denied that whatever benefits the Maoris have derived from colonisation have been the result of indirect rather than any direct efforts made by the colonists for their good. Beyond being spared the prospect of a violent death, it is hard for a Maori to see that he has gained anything; and even that benefit would have been secured to him under the reign of law established by the reception of Chris-