"RACIAL ACT BY UNION”

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28920, 13 June 1959, Page 14

"RACIAL ACT BY UNION”

Rev. A. A. Brash’s

Criticism

“It is of tremendous significance that while we have assumed that South African Rugby football authorities have laid down that the 1960 All Black team must be. for whites only, this is apparently not the case,” said the Rev Alan A. Brash, general secretary of the New Zealand Council of Churches, in a statement in Christchurch yesterday. “But this makes it of double significance that Maoris are nevertheless excluded, entirely on racial grounds and entirely on the initiative of the New Zealand Rugby Union. In other words, this is not a question of South 'African policy at all—it is a question of New Zealand Rugby Union policy—a rhcial act not even requested by South Africa, but carried out here. Z “This is not then an issue South Africa. It is a policy of racial discrimination in defiance of the absolutely unanimous opinion of Church leaders in every communion from Roman Catholic to Quakers on the moral issue involved. * “It is quite irrelevant that a representative of the Maori people condones, the act,” Mr Brash said. “In fact, it appears pathetic beyond measure to hear him asking at this moment for a trip to* the Pacific Islands or Ceylon for a Maori team. “The Churches have been told that it is impertinent for them to comment on moral issues in sport. It Is a new dimension of impertinence when a sports body can ignore the verdict of 'the Christian leaders of this country as to what the moral issue really is,” Mr Brash said. “It is an almost unbelievable example of blindness to all human values when that sports body can assume that the race issue is irrelevant to sport. “The real issue in New Zealand now is whether our soft living has so corroded the moral insights of the people as a whole that they will actually allow the Rugby Union to do this evil thing in the name of New Zealand.”