MAORI AND SPRINGBOK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 174, 24 July 1936, Page 6

MAORI AND SPRINGBOK.

The Arawa, Maoris have resolved to ask the New Zealand Rugby Union that none of their race be chosen to play against the Springboks on their forthcoming tour, or to participate in any official welcome to the visitors. If this question had to be raised, it is proper that it should have been raised now, and by the Maoris themselves, but it is not a question that concerns only the Maoris and the Rugby Union. Most non-Maori New Zealanders are likely to think that courtesy to a visiting team of footballers need not, and ought not, go the length of agreeing (even at the request of the Maoris) to an action that would amount to the raising of a "colour bar" in the Dominion. If a Maori Rugby player is entitled on his merits to inclusion in a provincial fifteen or in the national team, he should be included. A match between an all-Maori team and the Springboks need not and should not be arranged; anyone who saw the match at Napier in 1921 will know that its last-minute inclusion in the Springboks' itinerary was a blunder. The Arawa Maoris are mistaken in interpreting the exclusion of Maoris from the New Zealand team which went to South Africa in 1928 as an affront "from within their own land"; the decision was made to save them from affronts in South Africa, and for no other reason. As for Maori participation in official welcomes, their attendance or non-attendance is a matter for themselves. The New Zealand Rugby Union should on no account surrender the principle that every player in the land has an equal opportunity to aspire to selection in provincial or national teams, and the assurance that if he qualifies he will be selected.