Trade, Guns and Bibles - Mara Tautane

Haka Press; Price $2

"......nothing but frustration can derive from misplaced loyalty to an imperfectly understood past."

Ian Wards - "Shadow of the Land".

The myth of racial harmony in New Zealand is rapidly disappearing, Such a myth would have made books like this impossible to write 10 years ago. But it is a sign of the times that Maori groups mostly young, are becoming increasingly active.

The reason for the new activity is the realisation of a new colonial history something which has been ignored by New Zealand historians and sociologists for so long, and not without reason.

Still we get historians writing about the humanity that was shown to the Maoris by the Europeans (Keith Sinclair A history of N.Z.). The old smug quips the Maori is happy in his lot - lucky it was the British that settled New Zealand and not the Dutch or French - are still echoed, but seem increasingly hollow.

This book, which is a compact historical analysis, is an additional front against this peculiar type of reactionary thought called racism - possibly one of the most threatening social trends in contemporary New Zealand. It is not the racism of England or South Africa it is a very special type, and has evolved from a very special sequence of historical circumstances. When the leader of our country stokes these fires of racism, then this book becomes all the more relevant.

Trade, guns and Bibles is divided up into two parts. The first is an examination of the race relations of the early days of colonial New Zealand. The recurring theme of this first section is that Maori/ Pakeha race relations were shaped by the political circumstances that the colonists found themselves in. They wanted the land but were dominated militarily until 1855, plus the fact that the Maoris provided cheap labour, most of New Zealands food (until 1880) and a market for the manufactured products of Britain. This history goes a long way in explaining NZ's present race situation.

The second seciton examines class formation and the effects that refrigeration, large scale unemployment and political changes had on these classes. This is a well researched and extremely valuable piece of writing which is very relevant today when we observe class distinctions sharpening.

In all, the book is well written and cogently argued. It was put together by a group of 'workers' in Auckland and is the first in a series of four examining the class structure of New Zealand an area which is largely ignored in New Zealand due to the extremely bourgeois nature of our universities - a problem that does not prevail in most other western countries.

As it is, this book would put most New Zealand academics to shame with it's clear [unclear: exposition] and unambiguous approach to the problem.

Compulsory reading for those who are interested in New Zealand's colonial 'heritage'.

— David Murray