Rhodesia

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31248, 21 December 1966, Page 20

Rhodesia

Sir, —It would appear that the robbed and ill-treated 4,000,000 Rhodesian natives are in the unenviable position of a harmless lot of people in the midst of a dark wood who, robbed of all their possessions, are being invited to a friendly conversation with their robbers. One does not attach too great value to manners in such a crisis. The only way for Mr lan Smith to talk to British people is through Mr Harold Wilson or Mr Brown, Britain’s Foreign Minister. While lam amazed at the success of the Rhodesian tenacity I am glad Mr J. Dennehy, Greymouth, has entered negotiations in these columns to assist the Rhodesian natives. Nevertheless, I feel that Mr Holyoake should partake in these negotiations. He did very well in the Common Market discussions and also impressed those in Brussels with New Zealand’s point of view.— Yours, etc., RALPH S. WHEELER. Timaru, December 19, 1966.

Sir, —Since, according to your enlightened correspondents, Mr Smith so expertly interprets the social, political, economic, and cultural aspirations of the “heathen blacks,” we Britons have an obvious solution to our present difficulties: “Smith for Fuhrer; Smith for Messiah.” —Yours, etc., R.G. December 17, 1966.

Sir, —We are supposed to be a Christian people, yet we want Rhodesia to be ruled by the unfit. If Rhodesia is Christian, nothing will prevail against her. She has never been a British colony, but has been colonised by British stock. Britain’s pandering to terrorists has given up necessary bases vital to our security. This is costing all of us more and more. Meanwhile, we trade with China, but we won’t trade with Rhodesia. Australia sells wheat, steel, etc., to China and is having her troops killed with Chinesemade weapons and ammunition. Britain pushed Rhodesia into U.D.1., and, not wishing to kill her kindred, very piously hands over the responsibility to United Nations. We will wake to fearful

trouble if we do not heed now.—Yours, etc., WAKE UP. December 19, 1966.

Sir, —Varian J. Wilson seems to have missed the point. It is not a question of morality and law being separate issues, but a situation wherein the two have been joined in one confusion. Even if it were not so, whenever “the law is an ass,” morals sit in judgment on themselves. Motorists do not believe themselves amoral for driving at 40 m.p.h. on a straight unintersected road routinely placarded 30 m.p.h. In Britain votes for women have at last reduced the vigour of the Parliamentary system to apathetic stalemates. Giving the vote to at present intellectually handicapped Rhodesians is not in this decade in the interests of recipients-to-be. Lassitude in our country, on the other hand, might recede if you got the vote at the age of puberty (or at least with School Certificate) and lost it at the age of senility. Less talk then of morally handing it to Asia.— Yours, etc., A. B. CEDARIAN. December 20, 1966.