A Minor Addition to a Good Column

 There is another excellent column at Breaking Views today.

The column I speak of is headed Owen Jennings: Where is the partnership?

I recommend the read and will add a minor point to it.

There has been a great deal of comment recently that most of the Maori chiefs signed the "Maori" version of the Treaty.

This appears also to be accepted by the brain-dead and the non-thinkers (read "politicians").

It is in fact just more Maori greedy-activist fantasy.

There was only one treaty (the one currently called "The English version") offered and while the piece of paper used for the Maori chiefs to sign their agreement may have contained an attempted translation the Treaty signed for by the largely illiterate (i.e. they couldn't read any "version") Chiefs, they signed up to Hobson's Treaty - written in English.

I won't comment on any motive they may have had to sign that Treaty except to note that there were many more Maori in years before the agreement and after a few years of signing the agreement than there were when the signing took place.

I will note that after signing the agreement they happily wandered off and broke the treaty at will until finally brought to heel later in the 19th century.