OUR PIONEERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 152, 30 June 1927, Page 9

OUR PIONEERS.

NEW ZEALAND HISTORY.

ABSORPTION OF THE MAORIS,

A lecture on New Zealand pioneers and their work was given by Mr. J. W.Shaw at the Grey Lynn Library last(evening. Councillor W. H. Murray pre*sided.

The lecturer said that the history of New Zealand was the history of the reunion of two branches of the Caucasian race separated thousands of years ago in Asia. The characteristic instinct of tho white Caucasian race was migration. Tha first Polynesians reached our shores a thousand or more years ago, pushed out from the Asian continent. Through the British becoming a great navigating people events happened which brought the Caucasians who had gone west together with those who had gone east. Mr. Shaw then referred to the voyage of discovery by Abel Tasman in a Dutchbuilt vessel in 1642, He was the first to bring the two elements of the race into contact. There were some indications that Spaniards had visited Ne\r Zealand between the time of Tasmaa and that of Cook, but that was not definitely known. Cook in his visit of 1709 anticipated the visit of the French navigator de Surville by only a few days. French navigators later had to suffer for de Surville's action in carrying off a Maori chief in punishment for soma theft. Marion de Fresne, on whom vengeance fell at the Bay of Islands, left buried in a spot which he carefully indicated, a bottle containing the formal annexation of this country to France. Tlia bottle, however, was never recovered. The early fame of New Zealand was spread by means of seals, flax and kauri. The Maoris in their eagerness to acquire guns devoted themselves to the growing of flax, and were for a time seriously threatened with starvation. Next the lecturer referred to the cannibal feasts that took place on the site of Auckland less than 100 years ago. Migrants then began to come to New Zealand. In 1539 seventy-five different whaling vessels visited Russell. From that iime there had been a steady flow of people into the country. Those who came to the country in those days were bold, enterprising and self-reliant. They lived their lives of service and the children were now reaping the benefits. In the future the lecturer supposed that there would be a combination of the English and Maori races. The united race would gain the best qualities of both. There was no limit to what New Zealand might become. There was a danger that in selfish blindness we might check the steady persistent influx of more and more of the best white blood from the Old Country. We needed more of these men who had wrested the country from the wilderness and laid its ; foundations in hardship, in industry, and i in sacrifice.