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Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32005, 4 June 1969, Page 12

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Sir, —“In other countries,” says M. O’Neill, “the security service would intervene if citizens talked of another nation as their Motherland.” I find this delightful. He has accidentally supported my point: that one may speak without fear of the security police, limited only by common sense and common law, because New Zealand is basically British.—Yours, etc., KEN MCALLISTER. June 3. 1969.

Sir, —Having just waltzed away with the triple crown, and commencing Saturday’s battle with the pathetic strains of England’s national hymn, the Welsh can be forgiven for thinking in terms of “just another border feud,” and treating their encounter against the All Blacks with the apparent boredom repetition gives rise to. Mr Heath was there, but he would not have been offended by hearing our own national hymn. The man on the terrace who started singing it was doing a good job—a pity that no more patrons loosened their inhibitions to rally to the cause. The verbosity in the letter heading your Saturday edition was about 100 years out of date. Wales played Rugby against the might of New Zealand, not merely one of the colonies of the Motherland. We are most keen that New Zealand take the field to its own fanfare.—Yours, etc., GRAHAM J. MURRAY, P. FENWICK, D. A. BOARDMAN, P. J. JENKINS. D. D. HIDER, P. L. WELLS, W. N. JENKS. June 1, 1969.