Viewing these Olympic Games on television I have come to realise the number of countries which are islands about the same size as our own. They are in the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, and the East Indies. Most have climates and soils which allow extensive agriculture, and have other resources to help their way of life. They mostly have harbours where shipping could be accommodated. Yet in all but a very few cases, the people in these countries live very close to the breadline, and in primitive and often violent societies.
How is ii that we , here in New Zealand, have a society where most live a fairly comfortable and productive life in relative peace and contentment?
Our physical surroundings are not so much more superior. So what is the difference?
The answer is not too difficult to find. These countries, during the outburst of European exploration and consequent exploitation, were 'colonised” by people concerned only with getting wealth out of them. The colonizers were not concerned with doing anything for the local indigenous peoples.
But in New Zealand, colonists came out to live here, and to make a life for themselves, and their descendants.
And so they made farms, they built factories, roads, railways, schools, and churches. They built a nation. But now a few noisy, power and money hungry activist Maori are trying to lay claim to all the land, and all the improvements that the hard-working colonists, and the descendants of all earlier peoples, have produced.
Our wonderful little country is falling into the hands of brigands.

John Mills, Mt. Maunganui.