As direct and open as Americans in their dealings

Sunday, April 7th, 2019

The New Zealand division was just about the best infantry outfit in the British Eighth Army, Dunlap explains, and was used all the way from Alamein to Tripoli:

The Maoris, or native New Zealanders formed one large battalion of the Division. They are a Polynesian race, similar to our Hawaiians, and are accepted as complete equals by the New Zealanders of English origin. There is absolutely no color bar whatsoever, and intermarriage is very common between the races. Education is compulsory, therefore all get the same start in life on that score. The Maoris, generally pronounced “Mowries” are as direct and open as Americans in their dealings. They come all sizes and cannot be typed. Some are tall, aquiline-featured, others squat, oriental-faced. Some are almost black, others almost white.

The stories of the wars in the early days between English colonists and Maori warriors read like tales of the days of chivalry. Once a British commander retreated from a battlefield rather than continue fighting and destroy a Maori force who had only hand weapons but who formally invited the English to fight it out. In New Zealand for once England came up with the unbeatable colonization formula — get ‘em to join you. So now if a Maori does not like his taxes, he is stuck; the tax collector is probably a Maori too.

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