rtain quota of places that tend to be reserved for Maoris.
Now the assumption that this is a form of reverse discrimination or 'affirmative action' as it is called in American jurisprudence. The assumption is that these are people who have not had the benefits and the advantages that are available to the rest of the population. So you must not judge them by the same standard. You have to recognise that they have a special claim because of the historical injustice that they have suffered.
Now that is, I think, a self-defeating point of view. In the first place it smacks of condescension. You are not good enough, but we will make room for you because we recognise that we owe you something. You have suffered so much in the past and to allow you, to enable you, to better your own condition in life, we will make these facilities available to you, although you are not in a position to compete with the other sections of society on the basis of equality. It cannot be achieved, it cannot be accomplished on the basic of quality, but we will make special concessions to you and we will accommodate you although, in fact, you are found to be lacking.
Now I think that is destructive. It erodes self-confidence and self-esteem and for that reason I think quotas are not really acceptable from the standpoint of policy.
There are other objections to a system of quotas. As the Maoris begin to be educated, it may well be that the time will come they can gain for themselves more than the allotted places, the number of places you that allot in terms of the quotas that you determine as being appropriate to fulfill their needs. So the quota system, although intended to benefit them originally, may in the fullness of time actually operate to their disadvantage.
So there are many reasons why the quota system cannot be really be commended in terms of policy. But again the whole approach that is reflected in the quota system is open to cogent criticism on the basis that the objective of that method is to bring these people into our system. The assumption is that our system is best.
It is what would provide the answer to the needs of contemporary society here are these people on the fringes. We need to accommodate them and we will devise these artificial methods to accommodate them within our own system. I don't think that is an acceptable point of departure.
One other point which I wish to make is this, that many of these problems that we encounter in the world today arise from too strong a centralising tendency. Historical and anthropological research in our own country has shown that our lifestyles prior to the tank civilization of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, that our civilisation was very much a micro-civilization. There were little hamlets in different parts of the country and their culture and their values were different.
They differed significantly from hamlet to hamlet. There really were not patterns of life and thought which embraced large communities. All these changed with the development of roads, canals and waterways, the advent of western civilization with all its secondary influences. There was a very significant centralizing tendency. If we are to arrive at a realistic solution we must approach the problem in a different way recognising that centralising tendencies necessarily have their limitations. What are the matters that the people of the grass roots level in their own village communities can adequately handle for themselves? What are the matters that they can deal with and evolve satisfactory solutions?
There will be certain categories of matters which do not lend themselves to treatment in that manner at that level. Those matters you hand over to the next tier, to the next level. What cannot be done at the Gamsabha level or the village council level, you hand over to the Pradeshiya Sabha which is the next level. From the Pradeshiya Sabha you go up to the Provincial Council.
From the Provincial Council to the national Parliament, and so on. That to my mind is a much more realistic, a much more pragmatic exercise in devolution o