OLD BATTLES NOT TO BE RE-ENACTED

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 151, 22 March 1939, Page 6

OLD BATTLES NOT TO BE RE-ENACTED

Centennial Pageantry

Re-enactment of battles of the oldlime wars in this country is not desirable in centennial pageantry, says the Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr. Parry, writing in the “Centennial News" :— “One of the main purposes of the centennial celebrations is to show that the Maori and the pakeha have left behind. them the few old disputes which occasionally led to bloodshed, and are linked now in friendliness to assure an increasing measure of prosperity and happiness for New Zealand,” says the Minister.

“Anything which tends to give reminders of old troubles should have no place in the pageantry, but, of course, the various events of the past century would have proper accurate mention in the histories.”

He says he is emphatically supported in his view by a centennial message which Mr. Ivor Te I’uni, of Waikawa Pa, Picton, a direct descendant of the famous Honiana Te Puni, sent to the Prime Minister, Mr. Savage.

“The hardships, the bloodshed, between the pakeha and Maori have now, a hundred years after, been healed,” wrote Mr. Te Puni. “Even bloodshed between Maori and Maori has also been healed through the march of civilization. Today the token of greeting between the pakeha and Maori is ‘Tatou fTatou’ —we are one people.”