Clear as mud

Your correspondent Bruce Moon (‘A gigantic fraud’, June 19) appears to be so taken by a petty desire to diss Ma¯ ori culture and intelligence at every opportunity that his own logic circuits have blown a foo foo valve.

His public assertion of the Waitangi Tribunal finding that Ngapuhi chiefs did not cede sovereignty in 1840 being ‘blatantly untrue’ would normally indicate the existence of some compelling evidence in support of it. After all, the tribunal heard from a great number of people and sources from both cultures, and studied a great deal of evidence and argument over a great length of time before eventually arriving at its conclusion.

Mr Moon, on the other hand, appears to have drawn his contrary view only from his own interpretation of the significance of speeches said to have been made by certain Ma¯ ori chiefs prior to their signing the Treaty in 1840, as recorded by Colenso and verified by Busby at the time (albeit not published until 1890).

It is not necessary for the purposes of this exploration to debate the fidelity or completeness of what these two prominent colonialists subsequently purported to have recorded at the time, or to dwell on the fact that it was not made public until some 50 years later. That said, recorded comments of rangatira Te Kemara, Rewa, Moka, Kawiti, Hakiro, Tareha, and Wai, as quoted in Mr Moon’s letter, make explicit their refusal to accept the sovereignty of the British Crown.

However, when Mr Moon then goes on to say, “It is crystal clear that these chiefs of Ngapuhi sub-tribes understood that by signing they would become subordinate to the governor and hence to the Queen; that they would cede sovereignty. All except Wai, who disappeared, signed within a few days.”

Yep, crystal clear as mud, I should say. The content of the referenced speeches tells me that, having made their positions rejecting any loss of Ma¯ ori sovereignty abundantly clear, it would in fact defy logic to suggest they believed they were giving it up by signing the Treaty.

My understanding of the personal motivations and ethics of sundry European colonialists around that time also suggests to me the chiefs were likely encouraged in this thinking over the following ‘few days’ before they did sign, or they would not have done so. Funny about logic, but then that might simply be because Mr Moon and his fellow associates of the WWS brigade appear to still be thinking like colonial Brits, while I think like a New Zealander.

MIKE RASHBROOKE

Opua