Post by Kiwi Frontline on Mar 8, 2016 10:30:19 GMT 12
Feel free to share letters from this page, BUT PLEASE REMEMBER TO ATTRIBUTE THEM TO KIWI FRONTLINE. That way, our voices and concerns will grow stronger.
Wairarapa Times-Age 8/3/16
IMPORTANT MEETING TO ATTEND
I understand there is to be a freshwater hui at Masterton Town Hall at 1pm on Thursday, March 10.
It is essential as many people as possible attend this meeting to become informed on the government’s plans re the ownership of New Zealand freshwater resources.
If you would like to find out more before the hui (one of several around the country) I suggest you read the newsletter of the NZ Centre For Political Research — an independent group of New Zealanders who keep the welfare of all Kiwis in mind; not just one group who, being resident in NZ for the past 1800 years or so, forget that all these resources were here, unowned by anyone for millennia, and that they survived much better without human kaitiaki (guardians).
One may well ask what the arrival of Maori contributed to the generation of resources such as air, minerals, land and water — the answer is, no more than the rest of us.
H M
Masterton
Wanganui Chronicle 8/3/16
A FORCE FOR GOOD
Sorry, Potonga (letters, March 2), but I still believe we should relate what we write to the facts.
How about your claim that “Maori laughed when they first heard about resurrection and eternal life”? Now I am an atheist and have no belief in any of that, and I do not believe that such superstition was a great gift. But the question I wish to consider is whether Maori did, in fact, scoff at the idea.
This was to many superstitious Maori the major message coming from missionaries and came to underpin their extraordinary cultural revolution. Early accounts are full of their delight in the idea. There is Rangi in 1824, on his deathbed, “I have prayed to God and Jesus Christ, and my heart feels full of light.”
At that time Christian Maori were a small minority. There was later a considerable upsurge in numbers, a shift to Christianity in the years around 1840, so by 1845 it was estimated that about 43,000 attended Anglican services regularly, 16,000 attended Methodist services, and 5100 were associated with the Catholic mission. These estimates are probably a bit high, but they do show that many, probably a majority, had adopted the new religion that Potonga says they laughed at.
Great good was done by the new religion with its philosophy of universal humanity, which I do believe in. Epiha Putini was to say in 1853, “If missionaries had not come to the land, great would have been our darkness and death. You came and told us the name of God — that stopped our fighting.”
JOHN ROBINSON
Wellington
Weekend Sun / Sunlive 7/3/16
DEFINITIVE TREATY WORDS
Here is an irrefutable fact – straight after the signing of the Treaty, Hobson said “The Treaty,which forms the base of all my proceeding,s was signed at Waitangi on the 6 February 1840… This instrument I consider to be de facto the treaty, and all signatures that are subsequently obtained are merely testimonials of adherence to the terms of that original document”.
Those were the exact words used by Hobson, the person who co-drafted the Treaty arranged for the translation into Maori by Henry Williams and its transcription onto parchment. He then attended the signing by the 52 Maori chiefs at Waitangi on February 6, 1840, and signed the Tiriti o Waitangi as the representative of Queen Victoria.
It doesn't get any better than that:the evidence of an eyewitness, the creator of the Treaty, a party and signatory thereto. He finished off by saying “He iwi taki tatou – we are now one nation.”
Hey Mr Dey and all other treatyists/separatists/apologists, I believe that is game set and match?
R P,
Matapihi.
Wairarapa Times-Age 8/3/16
IMPORTANT MEETING TO ATTEND
I understand there is to be a freshwater hui at Masterton Town Hall at 1pm on Thursday, March 10.
It is essential as many people as possible attend this meeting to become informed on the government’s plans re the ownership of New Zealand freshwater resources.
If you would like to find out more before the hui (one of several around the country) I suggest you read the newsletter of the NZ Centre For Political Research — an independent group of New Zealanders who keep the welfare of all Kiwis in mind; not just one group who, being resident in NZ for the past 1800 years or so, forget that all these resources were here, unowned by anyone for millennia, and that they survived much better without human kaitiaki (guardians).
One may well ask what the arrival of Maori contributed to the generation of resources such as air, minerals, land and water — the answer is, no more than the rest of us.
H M
Masterton
Wanganui Chronicle 8/3/16
A FORCE FOR GOOD
Sorry, Potonga (letters, March 2), but I still believe we should relate what we write to the facts.
How about your claim that “Maori laughed when they first heard about resurrection and eternal life”? Now I am an atheist and have no belief in any of that, and I do not believe that such superstition was a great gift. But the question I wish to consider is whether Maori did, in fact, scoff at the idea.
This was to many superstitious Maori the major message coming from missionaries and came to underpin their extraordinary cultural revolution. Early accounts are full of their delight in the idea. There is Rangi in 1824, on his deathbed, “I have prayed to God and Jesus Christ, and my heart feels full of light.”
At that time Christian Maori were a small minority. There was later a considerable upsurge in numbers, a shift to Christianity in the years around 1840, so by 1845 it was estimated that about 43,000 attended Anglican services regularly, 16,000 attended Methodist services, and 5100 were associated with the Catholic mission. These estimates are probably a bit high, but they do show that many, probably a majority, had adopted the new religion that Potonga says they laughed at.
Great good was done by the new religion with its philosophy of universal humanity, which I do believe in. Epiha Putini was to say in 1853, “If missionaries had not come to the land, great would have been our darkness and death. You came and told us the name of God — that stopped our fighting.”
JOHN ROBINSON
Wellington
Weekend Sun / Sunlive 7/3/16
DEFINITIVE TREATY WORDS
Here is an irrefutable fact – straight after the signing of the Treaty, Hobson said “The Treaty,which forms the base of all my proceeding,s was signed at Waitangi on the 6 February 1840… This instrument I consider to be de facto the treaty, and all signatures that are subsequently obtained are merely testimonials of adherence to the terms of that original document”.
Those were the exact words used by Hobson, the person who co-drafted the Treaty arranged for the translation into Maori by Henry Williams and its transcription onto parchment. He then attended the signing by the 52 Maori chiefs at Waitangi on February 6, 1840, and signed the Tiriti o Waitangi as the representative of Queen Victoria.
It doesn't get any better than that:the evidence of an eyewitness, the creator of the Treaty, a party and signatory thereto. He finished off by saying “He iwi taki tatou – we are now one nation.”
Hey Mr Dey and all other treatyists/separatists/apologists, I believe that is game set and match?
R P,
Matapihi.