In the opening sentence of his letter Robin Bell displays a lack of logic by saying 'I'm not going to get into a tit for tat...” and then proceeds to do exactly that. His muddled thinking is propounded by equating the circumstances in India, North America and Africa with those conditions existing in New Zealand and comparing the activities of British forces with those of the U.S. Government against their native people. His observation of the effects of ignoring history is scarcely original.
He fails to acknowledge that Britain's initial involvement in the country was at the behest of the Northern Tribes who saw Britain's intervention as preferable to that of the French, the increasing lawlessness in the north and the tribal conflicts threatening the very survival of the race.
Finally I believe that the Lancashire children would have preferred ‘crawling under looms' than to being killed and eaten as their fate may have been in New Zealand.

Bryan Johnson, Omokoroa.