A century ago, race relations in New Zealand were no better than in many other parts of the world. The white man had arrived, made war on the native Maoris, a people of Polynesian race, killed many and driven the survivors off the good pasture lands. In 1856 Dr. Isaac E. Featherston, a member of Parliament, wrote: "The Maoris are dying out. Our plain duty, as good, compassionate colonists, is to smooth down their dying pillow. Then history will have nothing to reproach us with."
The smoothed-down pillow was tuberculosis, typhoid, and other...
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