F.O.L. AND RIGHTS Mr Pearce ‘Utterly Condemns’ Intrusion
(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, March 14. The intrusion of the Federation of Labour into Rugby Union affairs during last year’s South African tour was “utterly condemned” by the retiring president of the Auckland Rugby Union (Mr T. H. Pearce) at the union’s annual meeting tonight.
Mr Pearce, who is also the president of the New Zealand Rugby Union, said he resented the entrance of “pseudo politics” into Rugby.
“Last year,” he said, “the message went out from the Federation of Labour: don’t treat the South African team well in hotels.” Yet, said Mr Pearce, the order should have been to welcome the team with open arms. “Danie Craven, Kobus Louw and the South African board have been fighting in direct conflict with the South African Government—for the benefit of Rugby,” he said. “The Federation of Labour are coming into something that does not concern them at all.” Their present president, Mr T. E. Skinner, took part in a protest march in 1960 against
the All Black team going to South Africa, said Mr Pearce. In 1963 he welcomed, as a Rugby league official, the South African Rugby league team that visited Auckland, he said. “The recent decision by the New Zealand Rugby Union not to send an All Black team to South Africa next year may be proved in the passage of time to be a wrong one. “However, at the time it was definitely the correct decision. “It has distressed me that too many people are imputing things about the decision that the game never desired. Both here and in South Africa we have only tried to do the best for the game. “That should be the sole consideration when making an administrative decision: what is right for the game.”
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19660315.2.177
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Press, Volume CV, Issue 31009, 15 March 1966, Page 18
Word count
Tapeke kupu
300F.O.L. AND RIGHTS Mr Pearce ‘Utterly Condemns’ Intrusion Press, Volume CV, Issue 31009, 15 March 1966, Page 18
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Press. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Acknowledgements
Ngā mihi
This newspaper was digitised in partnership with Christchurch City Libraries.