Enter P.H. Philip

But the role of the Consulate changed markedly in the late 1960's, particularly in the period leading up to the 1970 All Black tour of South Africa. Much of the reason for this was to be found in the advent of P.H. Philip as Consul-General. A major propaganda offensive began throughout New Zealand. In the time he was here, Mr. Philip addressed meetings at more than 213 places, filling the country's schools and libraries with glossy, pro-apartheid propaganda. One of Mr. Philip's last acts was to send 500 sets of books to the various public and newspaper libraries in New Zealand, claiming that New Zealanders were totally "ignorant and misinformed" about South Africa.(4)

A typical example of the way in which Mr. Philip distorted the reality of the apartheid system can be found in the incessant claim that apartheid means no more than separate development, needed as a result of cultural differences of an irreconcilable nature. "At the moment in South Africa a black man and a white man ride a horse. The white man sits in front and holds the reins. The simple answer is two horses, and that's what our policy is all about. The entire territory is being divided into areas which at present are being groomed for self-government—the final step before independence."(5)

The majority of New Zealanders now have some appreciation of the reality in spite of the Consulate's efforts; that 87% of the land has been declared white under the 1936 Land Act; that Blacks have no economic and political rights in this area and serve as a reservoir of cheap labour for the white economy; that the remaining 13% of the country is split up into arbitrarily defined tribal units, each so called homeland consisting of a number of disjointed and unconsolidated reservations in which the African 70% of the population is supposed to determine its politic and economic future.