FIERY ARAWAS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 64, 20 September 1939, Page 3

FIERY ARAWAS

PARTICIPATION IN WAR NORTHERN MAORI ACTION DISAPPROVED A protest against the action of meeting of Whangarei and Northern Maoris in carrying a resolution opposing conscription and asking that a Maori battalion, be reserved for home dele nee only was expressed unanimously at a large meeting of Arawa Maoris held on Tuesday nignt. On tht: same evening, a parade of over SO Maoris was held and elementary drill instruction was given by returned soldier officers. The meeting carried a resolution stating that so far as the Ai'awa.-: Avcrc concerned they made an unconditional offer of men and womenpower wherever the greatest danger threatened and that, in the opinion of the meeting that danger point was not in New Zealand hut "beyond the shores of the great ocean ol KiwM 5 the sacked pathway of our ancestors in the misty past and later of their descendants in their journey |to the heights of Gallipoli and plains of Flanders where the spirit of their comrades who never returned now beckons them lo hurry." The resolution concluded: ''Let other;; hesitate in this our ex tremc hour of peril and neeed, but the spirit of the Arawa and associate tribes throughout Aotea-roa flames at deeds of wanton aggression and demands that they again be allowed to cross the seas to stand shoulder to shoulder with their white brothers, sharing with them equality of sacrificc in defending the same idea Is the}" fought for twenty years ago." The text of the resolution has been sent to the Acting-Prime Minister (Hon. P. Fraser).