Decision on tour by Presbytery

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32966, 12 July 1972, Page 18

Decision on tour by Presbytery

South Africa should be invited to send a representative Rugby team, selected on merit by a multi-racial panel, to New Zealand in 1973, the Presbytery of Christchurch decided last evening.

A motion supporting the sending of such an invitation was passed on voices after two members of the Presbytery’s public questions committee gave opposing views on the proposed Springbok tour.

The motion urged "all persons and groups concerned to indicate to the Prime Minister and the Rugby Union their support for such an invitation,” and urged the Rugby Union to amend its invitation.

The motion was put by the chairman of the committee (Mr J. S. Murray). A second motion by Mr Murray that the decision be conveyed to the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, “members of Parliament within the

bounds,” the New Zealand Rugby Football Union, and the Canterbury Rugby Football Union, was also carried. In an address in favour of the proposed tour, the Rev. L. B. Galbraith, of St James Church, Spreydon, said he was not speaking in favour of apartheid which, he said, was an inhuman doctrine oppressive and cruel to coloured people in South Africa.

Although apartheid was abhorrent to him, he believed that maintaining contacts or “building bridges” with South Africa would help to break down apartheid. In tracing the history of the Afrikaans people Mr Galbraith said the Boers were not an easy people to influence by force. “The first breakthrough in apartheid was the last tour when coloured people from New Zealand entered South Africa as honoured guests—after this even some of the strongest supporters of apartheid broke away.” No people could put up with apartheid for very long, he said. “There is going to be a violent explosion, and the coloured people will be hurt most —for that reason alone we should support the tour.”

Rev. W. J. Kier, of the Christchurch North Presbyterian Church, said there were two kinds of tour supporters: the supporters of apartheid and the opponents of it. All tour opponents were opponents of apartheid. His reasons for opposing the tour were to show solidarity with the coloured and oppressed people of South Africa; to oppose apartheid; and to avoid confusion about where a person stood on apartheid. Building bridges with South Africa had not worked in the past, Mr Kier said. Most oppressive laws were unchanged and some were more oppressive. "The tour highlights the issues sharply in the eyes of the world ... if we stand up and oppose it we will be seen in the eyes of the world.”