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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 14, No. 13. October 4, 1951

[Introduction]

It is becoming increasingly more obvious that New Zealand is heading for trouble, internal trouble. Not through wharf strikes, or industrial disputes, but through the gradual erection of a colour bar; not openly, but in a subtle, unsuspecting way, a colour bar that is insinuating its way into this nation.

It was our misfortune in 1946 that four Maori politicians were in a position to control the government of this country. I say misfortune, not because their position was used by the men concerned to further their own interests at the expense of the larger pakeha population—it wasn't—but because it provided the starting point for perhaps the most dastardly piece of political propaganda that has ever permeated this country. That is the belief that the Maori is utterly without scruples when it comes to voting—that he votes for the party which is going to father him, to mother him, to nurse him, to provide 10/- for the same child as many times as he can produce indigent relatives. It is the belief that the Maori wants only to back the winning horse, to hold the whiphand over the pakeha, to sit back and grow fat while the politicians fawn at his knees. In short, it is the belief that the Maori is morally inferior to the white.

It was evident even in 1946 that this type of political propaganda would do more harm to the country in the long run than it could ever do good. It was the propaganda of the disgruntled extremist, not of the sane-minded elector.