EDITORIAL No Maoris No Tour

Te Ao Hou, March 1966, Page 3

EDITORIAL No Maoris No Tour This article was written prior to the meeting of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union held on February 25 at which councillors were to decide upon a reply to the South African invitation to send an all-white team to tour South Africa in 1967. At the time of writing, there seems to be little danger than an All Black team will be sent to represent our country in South Africa. Such a team would have to exclude Maoris, and public opinion in New Zealand has noticeably hardened against sending a ‘representative’ team without Maoris. If an All Black team is not sent, there are two other courses of action open to the Rugby Union, other than a straight-out refusal of the invitation to send a team. Each of these alternatives has its advocates amongst those who would put rugby football before all other considerations. The Rugby Union could ask for a postponement of the tour for a couple of years. However if it does so, it can only be in the hope that those who oppose the tour will cool down and forget about it, and that then, in 1969 or 1970, it may be possible quietly to send over another all-white team without our noticing. But the country will not so easily forget. Or else the Rugby Union might possibly decide to send to South Africa in 1967 an all-white team which would go under a different name, and would not be accorded the status of a fully representative side. But if this should happen, we will all know that it is merely a subterfuge, a dishonest way of avoiding the issue. It is most unlikely that those who are opposed to the tour would be misled by a pretence of this kind. It is very much to be hoped that the Rugby Union will have the wisdom to reject both these alternatives, and to directly decline the invitation—as, indeed, it should have done months ago. We believe that a considerable majority of New Zealanders are now strongly opposed to any other course of action. It is a most hopeful sign for our country's future that this should be so.