ON THE LINE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 164, 1 October 1927, Page 11

ON THE LINE

A Division in E/ugby MAORIS BARRED AFRICA DRAWS THE COLOUR-LINE (By H. MAKARINI) Zealand’s compliance with the stipulations made by South Africa in the invitation extended to the All Blacks of 1928 has created a regrettable situation in Maoriland Rugby. The gravity of the schism which such a reservation could effect was not realised earlier, but its seriousness, andl the implied slur on Maori sportsmen are fully recognised now that many good footballers have been standing on the iine during the ty*ial matches. Popular feeling against any tour which can shatter, as the arrangements for 1928 have done, the true democracy of football, has been stirred lately from its former mute acquiescence in the mapdate that no native players should be sent, and as a result it is unlikely that any other tour will be made if the same restrictions are to apply. A salient of Rugby in New Zealand, the very quality which made it a national game, is the broadness of its application. Schoolmasters and doctors play shoulder to shoulder with slaughtermen and labourers. The finest principles of true democracy are observed on a tour in which some of the men are the products of secondary school and university, while others know little learning, and less of the social veneer which higher education is assumed to impart. FUSION OF THE RACES Beyond this. New Zealand Rugby has, as a great philosopher once observed, been symbolical of the fusion of two races, the Maori with the Briton. In this country, white men recognise the Maori as their equal—recognition that has been simply compelled, because the intellectual and physical gifts of the Maori are unquestioned by those who know him. As for his morals—all New Zealand knows

that the Maori is a sportsman, and in deportment he can frequently teach a lot to the Pakeha, as was noted by many when a Maori Rugby team was recently touring Britain at about the same time as another set of footballers. Now all this happy unity is broken. The Maori is not eligible. The decree may be tragic in its effects on the success of next year's touring side, for some of the players left behind are the best in the country in their positions. By imagining what the 1924 All Blacks would have been without Nepia | and Mill, the Rugby student can form i some impression of the futility of describing next year’s tests as a genuine trial between the Rugby forces of New Zealand and South Africa. AUCKLAND AND THE BAN It happens that Auckland, on this occasion, is severely affected by the ban. There is certainly no better fullback that Luis Paewai playing Rugby in New Zealand at the moment, and there is not another lock as good as Wanoa. Elsewhere Blak«, Jacob, Matene, Gemmell, McDonald and Robinson are automatically disqualified from consideration. Therein lies the most tragic feature. These players have gone through strenuous seasons in the same colours as their Pakeha colleagues. There can be little surprise if some of them, now on the line, feel a perplexed resentment, and a sense of injustice. Even members of the New Zealand Rugby Union are now beginning to realise that it were better never to have gone to South Africa than to have accepted the conditions laid down. EPISODE IN NAPIER The* fear that the Springbok would not welcome native players probably had its genesis in 1921, when the Springboks fought a hectic battle with a Maori side at Napier, and afterwards expressed open contempt of the team that so nearly beat them. The final score in the match was 9 —B, South

Africa winniing, and a sensation was caused afterwards through the leakage of Press dispatches cabled to South Africa by newspaper correspondents travelling wiith the team. As a result of an official investigation there were dismissals from the staff of the Napier Telegraph Office. That episode, however, has little real connection with the cold facts as they now exist —that an unexampled division has been raised in a hitherto national game, and that New Zealand has, in a sense, woefully deserted some of her finest sportsmen. Rather than permit the development of a situation now seen to cover only very thinly an insult to the Maori people, NeAr Zealand should have said to the Springbok, “We will bring all our players—or none at all.” Then would have been avoided the embarrassing consequences of an order which has rejected such players as Batty, the most brilliant forward seen in Auckland this year, Wanoa, who is studying for the ministry, and Jack Blake, whose brother was killed on Gallipoli, and who has good cause to be proud of his Maori blood, even though few would suspect him to be anything but. a Pakeha. The All Blacks next year will be the guests of the Springbok, and they will find him an hospitable fellow; so good a sportsman that anyone who entertains any prejudice against Dutchmen can readily forget it. But New Zealand would have as much justification for telling South Africa to bring no Dutchmen, as Africa had for inviting a New Zealand team without Maoris.