New Zealand

     Regarding the debate about the defeat of the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team by the French, Ron Bracewell dismisses the French idea that the New Zealanders were Anglo-Saxons:
     Yes, there are Anglo-Saxons on the New Zealand team. But a key component is of Maori ancestry. These warlike people were never defeated by the British, whose soldiers came in the middle eighteen hundreds to protect settlers who had paid their own fares half way round the world.
     Captain Cook was unable to get fresh water anywhere in New Zealand as he mapped the coasts of the North and South Islands. Proficiency in endemic warfare by 1770 had already developed the siege trench system perfected in WWI in France.
     A clause in the peace treaty protects any Maori goods that predated the arrival of the English. A claim that a fishing ground off South Island was a preexisting good was sustained in court and a substantial indemnity, around a million dollars [?], was paid to a tribe by those wishing to continue fishing there.
     The air is another preexisting good; therefore, it is argued, television stations must pay a royalty for their use of the air. I do not know the status of this case.
     Why were the Maori people so good at fighting? Apparently they lived peacefully (and wastefully) for centuries on the thigh and breast meat of moas until they were all eaten, probably by the early 1700s.. By this time they had lost the flocks they brought with them and turned to human flesh as a source of protein, as reported in stories of triumphant massacres.
     Sorry to hear that the French won. Lucky they weren't eaten.


     My comment: I again consulted the French TV commentator. She replied testily "I told you not to quibble. The Maoris are Anglo-Saxons." Europeans have a very confused idea about Oceania. New Zealandīs attitude toward Australia is similar to the Canadian attitude toward the U.S. They feel weaker but superior. Commenting on the migration of New Zealanders to Australia, the Kiwi prime minister recently commented: "It's a good thing. It will raise the IQ of both countries."

Ronald Hilton - 11/1/99