Springbok tour

Press, 31 March 1981, Page 16

Springbok tour

Sir,—Where are they, these tens of thousands of anti-anti-tour-ists,' if they exist at all? Not in the streets, they weren’t, not at the last anti-tour march. Mocking placards like “Even The Pig Has Seen The Light” must have sent them scurrying. Jamming your correspondence columns, are they? Taking turns on the Consulate typewriter? I have $5 for any. proapartheid rallyist who can-per-suade more than a dozen nonwhite non-geriatric non-ex-Rhodesian refugee sahibs but into the fresh air for more than half an hour, and $6 if they can talk. I reckon my money is safe enough. I wish that New’ Zealand’s international reputation and our chance of being allowed in to the next' Commonwealth Games were equallv secure.—Yours, etc., "ken mcallister. March 29, 1981.

Sir,—l read Allan Frampton’s letter (March 26) with interest. Although I am antiSpringbok tour, I think it. is possible that many folk do not give two hoots ’either way. Such people could give a false reading to a referendum; and I would not be “throwing my hat in the air’’ if the tour was cancelled under those circumstances. There is a need for more people to know what apartheid means. Mr Ron Don is reported (“The Press, - ’ March 28) to have said that things cannot change overnight. If the introduction of apartheid (1948?) was meant to benefit non-whites, then the night has been long and disturbing for them.—Yours, etc., KENNETH EBER MARTIN. March 29, 1981.