‘The Lessons They Taught Us’

Te Ao Hou, September 1964, Page 36

‘The Lessons They Taught Us’ ‘As we pay our tribute this day to those who fought and fell in battle and whose bodies lie in this churchyard, let us thank God for the seeds they sowed and for the lessons they taught us, European and Maori alike. Let us resolve afresh, with the help of God, to act with chivalry and honour one towards another,’ said Bishop Holland. That afternoon Major General Thornton unveiled suitably inscribed tablets erected on the site of the battle. The smiling green fields lie like a great garden round the spot where heroes died for a lost and hopeless cause. It is easy to pray for those who bled there, men and women, whatever side they were on. The heart warms too at the compassion of the soldiers who pleaded with the Maoris to end the slaughter and to surrender. But looking round it calls for the utmost Christian charity to find within oneself a kindly thought, let alone a prayer for those who punished such heroes by confiscating their land. Then came the centenary of Gate Pa. Even more than the other two commemorations, this seems to have gone more surely to the heart of the matter, the utter tragedy of the conflict, tragedy deepened if anything by the displays of heroism and chivalry it called forth. The organisers of the services spared no words to tell of the despair of the good missionary Archdeacon Alfred Nesbit Brown when war came to the land where he had laboured, where he was torn between his loyalty to his Queen and his love of the Maori people. They paid tribute to the courageous men and women whose faith and bravery will inspire New Zealanders down the centuries. They are the only ones, as far as I can see, who referred, in a play to be produced there, to European arrogance and intolerance. Two memorials, a cairn and a plaque mark historic spots and Maori and Pakeha, Catholic and Protestant, joined in honouring those who had the courage to choose death before

dishonour. All physical courage is to be admired and great courage is worthy of great respect. Let it be remembered, though, that physical courage is not a rare quality. Nearly all men and women, given sufficient cause, can at least for brief space, co-ordinate mind and body to face some fearful task, awesome ordeal or grave responsibility, disciplining the quivering nerves, cordoning off the marshes of the mind from whence rise imagination's paralysing miasmas, and commanding unwilling feet to tread the trails of terror. Thus, to me, it seems that the lesson most necessary for us to learn from these battles of a century ago is not so much that men and women can rise to heights of heroism but rather that greed, intolerance, misunderstanding, arrogance and ignorance can split a nation so that Christian battles with Christian and brother kills brother. The lesson is that if any seed of such deadly plant remains or is detected, let it be ruthlessly destroyed. There is no greed now for Maori land—or one would hope there was not. But there is intolerance and misunderstanding and arrogance and ignorance on both sides. If Rangiriri and Orakau and Gate Pa have any message, it is that these things of evil must be utterly destroyed, mercilessly excised from our national life.