"SELF-DETERMINATION"

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 548, 13 July 1920, Page 2

"SELF-DETERMINATION"

Says "avis'* in the Ota.ga » Times:— . W«b^H The man—whoever be JiM*™ first coined the word ™i&S3M tion" and sent it broadcast "WW out Europe as a rallying cry «■ pressed nationalities, raised up aM if problems eve! jA4jH ?he bSs of^^ u is hopeless, for m have long since been ««»*«*■ twenty* centuries and more 01 « cX industrial, and nationaru« vals. There is, more loose and *■ talk uttered on the questions o» than on most questions. n>»3gM in our schooldays—when PeofM lieved the Boy Scout I of a great Aryan Race the plateau of Thibet, *">»«■ successive tribes '*roke away■ made their way w eßt / the setting sun, "according toJH resistible impulse of all Jjj*£fl_fJ According to this theory, JPSVMV, mainly of German ants of Europe were "«S"f| Arvan. Teutons in the North, ■ in *the West, Latins and the South, Slavs in the Last **■ assumedlo.be connected by tj_ blood relaOjtship. This gnu«| was a P»J sumption based solely on i reM ship of language, has long smcejj the wav of similar ansuppßJ theories." We came not fron> ■ but from Europe. The vast of European races are not Ary«B« all, but have acquired "uage from some long-ftfrWj*«J_B| queror. From language, lner«| or identity of language, we c» n U e nothing. There is a closer ■■ relationship between the l """-J the Southern Germans the Southern Germans and ">*■ sians. Those who tell us to J in races" do not know what UUM asking. There is no jrumxeoj Each so-called race.is f terogeneous elements mixed in inextricable confusion by <H less ages of conquest, -ration, capture, usurpation. ■ do we reasoTTas if the with the first historical reco ™J The Sinn Fein claim £&t are a nation apart is therefore ed on an out-of-date ing the term "Celtic'.' in its« signification—which, as I hav« ready said, is a misnomer—no shadow of proof that »£■ are, or ever were, Celtic. IfH are, their Celtic strain has diluted that it is not worth m in- of. What has taken place m\ last three centuries—the EngusM Scottish colonisation of Ulster-«B have taken place often before (■ a period of time compared J which these three centuries arß as a moment. The "Celtic in J ants of Ireland are themselves tM ers, invaders who, in times longM iuthlessly seized the land * rol ß pre-Celtic Iberians. And the m\ ers themselves had probably as ■ mixed blood in their veins aj men who colonised Ulster. MarsM Danes, Norsemen, Saxons creeks and inlets of the NortJ and the Baltic must also hav« their scattered human xlebris a shore. The blame for the ■ of these modern radical C 0" at the door of language and of ■ less, sinful tradition. ThereM closer kinship of blood.amon« English, Scotch, Welsh, ftn<L—than most of us dream o£».*?M ticulties of the present si« arise from an obsession with «■ that belong to past a clinging to traditions and H that hr.ve no foundation in factßJ