VICE-REGAL TOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 20, 25 January 1927, Page 15

VICE-REGAL TOUR.

NORTHERN MAORIS' WELCOME. HISTORIC LAXDIXG PLACE. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) KAITAIA, this day. The Vice-Regal party were greeted yesterday by a large party of pakehas and Maoris on their arrival at Mangonui from the Bay of Islands district, where they have had a most happy time. At Mangonui the inhabitants turned out in force to do honour to the representatives of His Majesty on this their first tour of the Xorth.

On their arrival at'Kaitaia, which is deemed to Jse the capital of the Northland, the members of the Mangonui County Council and Kaitaia Town Board were introduced to Sir Charles Fergusson, and Lady Alice.

Subsequently the Vice-Regal party motored to the historic site on the hill marking the landing of the first missionary party, the Rev. Joseph Matthews and Mr. Puckey. Here a party of natives, some of whom came from as far north as Te Kao, accorded them a fitting Maori welcome.

The natives presented an address •which was most impressive. It said: "We, the Rarawa, Te Aupouri and Ngatikahu tribes have been a law-abiding people according to the laws of God and man ever since the arrival of the late Samuel Marsden in the year ISI4. Our paramount chief of olden times, Xoprera Panakareo, and his followers were true friends of the pakeha, and we, their descendents, have been brought up in such friendship."

Sir Charles, after thanking them sincerely, said he trusted that the children would ever be taught what they owed to their forefathers, and that the poetry, art and chivalry and courage so ably demonstrated in "the past by the Maoris would be an example to them.