“Home”

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

“Home”

Sir,—lf Mr Heath was not born in New Zealand, or does not possess New Zealand citizenship, or does not consider New Zealand as his home, as he naturally does not, then be cannot be anything else except a foreign politician. If New Zealand was not fully Independent and was still a colony, only then could Britain be regarded as more than another foreign Power. To be true New Zealanders we obviously do not have to deny our past history and heritage. But if we want to continue to be English and have everything round us English then we must go and live in England. For New Zealand has a future history as well as that sentimentalised past heritage. Perhaps some New Zealanders are “allowed” to sit through the British anthem because we feel that after having lived in this country 150 years, New Zealand is home and merits its own anthem.—Yours, etc., TRUE NEW ZEALANDER. June 3, 1969. Sir, —“True New Zealander” has as much right to his views as the signatories of the letter to which he objects. But I must take him up on one point. He says “There is no evidence to support that New Zealanders necessarily aspire to the same moral standards as the British." I think there is a great deal. After 15 years residence in this country I am glad to find so many of our virtues strongly entrenched in, and, let us admit, our faults shared by, the average' Kiwi. ■ I think your correspondent is judging this “Home” business more by disgruntled theory than by practical experience. New Zealanders in England are welcomed there by all and sundry as favourite cousins, and I do deplore the “bloody Pommie” attitude one sometimes finds in a people whose grandparents had for a thousand years built up traditions of decency and moral• worth which New Zealanders as a whole have adopted^—Yours, etc., - ’ CARACTACUS. June 2, 1969.

Sir,—lt must be humiliating to any nationally conscious New Zealander to read the open letter to Mr Heath by a group of people who so arrogantly assume the right to pledge our loyalty to his homeland. Mr Heath is a twentieth century politician and surely must have been embarrassed by its implications. My motherland is New Zealand, and in New Zealand my allegiance lies. It is conceivable, and not highly improbable, that sharp' differences of an economic, political and military nature could arise between New Zealand and England. In such an event the signatories to the open letter appear to have forsworn their opposition to their own country's interests. —Yours, etc., TRIPLE STAR. June 3,1969.