CONSULT MAORIS

I look forward to consultation with the Maori leaders about the course and speed of the canoe on their great voyage into the future. In particular, we will confer together on the setting up of a Maori Tribal Council so that the leaders of the people may have a forum for discussion at national level and a channel of communication with the Government. I trust that the Maori people will co-operate with me whole-heartedly in safeguarding and advancing their best interests, as I can assure them that the Government has their best interests at heart.

On this, the first occasion on which we celebrate Waitangi Day as New Zealand's National Day, we dedicate ourselves to the task of facilitating the advance of the Maori people as citizens of New Zealand so that two ways of life can become one.

As this is now our clear objective, not only the Maori but also the Pakeha must be guided by those celebrated words of that great soldier and scholar of the Maori people. Sir Peter Buck:

Ka pu te ruha: ka hao te rangatahi.
The old net is cast aside: the new net goes a-fishing.

Wedding of Mr Rex Wilson, formerly Te Ao Hou representative at Whangarei, to Miss Maureen Bradley. Mr Wilson has Maori blood on his mother's side, formerly of Thames. His wife is a granddaughter of Mr Waitai Pita, prominent rangatira of the Whangaruru district. The couple are now in Hawera, where Mr Wilson is resident officer of the Department of Maori Affairs. Photo by Bernhard Chantler