20 September 2005

north/south red/red grand coalition

In praise of ...
Uncertainty reinforces the Churchillian view of democracy as being the worst form of government apart from all the others. In the meantime, the obvious answer to the problem would be for Germany's SPD party to form a grand coalition with New Zealand's Labour and rule both countries - New Zealand did once rejoice in a 19th-century nickname as 'the Prussia of the Pacific'.


What did they call us in the the 19th century? The Pacific's Bavaria? Burgundy? Champagne? And what was so Prussian about New Zealand?

3 comments:

Rich said...

Not a bad scheme - New Zealand would be in the EU so we'd have free movement of labour, avoiding all that tedious stuff with immigration policy - also Porsche might build a factory here.

Alan said...

I'm anxious to find out why you were called Prussians.

Rich said...

I found a reference on http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/1999w39/msg00130.htm which suggested it was due to the imperialist tendencies of the "NZ ruling class". I don't know where the original quote is from.

Certainly Michael King suggests that imperial expansion was a minority interest in 19th century NZ - most NZ governments saw the various overseas territories (like Samoa) that NZ administered as a bit of an imposition.