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.

Gala After the Service After the service at Rangiriri I went to the bank of the Waikato where a crowd of about 5000 people had gathered. It was the very carnival I had looked to with foreboding, the circus my old friend of Turangawaewae had feared. There were laughing, sweating men toiling over hangis in the baking sunshine. There were poi dancers on a punt in the river. There was a ferris wheel whirling shrieking children high over the crowd. There was popcorn, soft drinks, water melons. There was love-making, back-slapping, beer-drinking. There were Pakehas, Maoris, Chinese, Indians. It contained every single thing which previously I had decided would be wrong and out of place. But as I sat by the river I knew where the wrong lay most. It lay within me for I had not understood how laughter can conquer bitterness or understood until I had seen it that a Maori girl and a Pakeha boy holding hands on a merry-go-round are as happy a symbol of the future as flowers on the grave of a soldier dead a century are fitting tributes to the past. So I left my anger by the river and went home content. action songs and a ferris wheel contributed to the gala spirit which prevailed at Rangiriri once the solemn commemorative service was concluded.