LOOKING BACK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 236, 5 October 1935, Page 14

LOOKING BACK.

NOTABLE EVENTS. NEXT WEEK’S ANNIVERSARIES ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. (By M.P.W.) To-iiiorrow will be the anniversary of the death of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet laureate from 1850 to his death in 1592. Tennyson has rather gone out of fashion in recent years, but he occupies a place in English literature that ensures his membership of the select band of immortals. Tennyson was born at Somcrsby in Lincolnshire and evinced the poetic gift while quite young. In 1827 he joined his brother A'harles in the publication of “Poems by Two Brothers.” In 1830 and 1832 he again appeared before the public, the two small volumes of those years, written entirely by himself, serving to mark him out as one of the coming men in poesy. It was not until 1842 that he was again attracting attention with two volumes; but these more than confirmed previous promise. In 1847 he published “The Princess”; in 1850. “In Memoriam,” a poem of great beauty and depth of thought, in which he enshrined his affection for the memory of his dead friend, Arthur Hallam.

Other well-known works include “The Idylls of the King,” “Enoch Arden,” "Queen Mary,” “Harold” and “Becket.” Tennyson was raised to the peerage in 1883. Early Colonisation. Monday will be the anniversary of the arrival of the first convicts at Port Phillip. This was in 1803. The expedition was prompted by the suggestion of Philip King, the first lieutenant-gover-nor of Norfolk Island and later Governor of New South Wales. The proposal to form a settlement at Port Phillip appealed to the Home Government. It was considered that a settlement on Bass Strait would be of value as a base for the storage of seal oil and skins. It was therefore decided to dispatch an expedition under Lieutenant-Colonel David Collins.

Two vessels, H.M.S. Calcutta, GO guns, Captain Daniel Woodriff, and the chartered transport Ocean, 481 tons, conveyed the expedition, which in addition to about three hundred convicts, ineluded a few settlers, besides the civil and military establishments and a number of women and children. Tho two ships sailed from England on April 27, 1803. The Ocean arrived at tho destination on October 7 and H.M.S. Calcutta two days later. A small settlement was established at Port Phillip, but the surroundings did not attract LieutenantColonel Collins, who was also alarmed by attacks from natives. At the end of January he removed his whole expedition to the Derwent River. Thus the plan to colonise Port Phillip fell through and it was i.ot until NoVem. her 19, 1834, that Edward Henty, the first permanent settler, landed to carve out a home on land that was to become | the site of a great city —Melbourne. Boer War Begins. On October 9, 1899, President Kruger, of the Transvaal, handed to the British agent at Pretoria the ultimatum which precipitated a war which was not to close for over two and a half years. The broad outline of the course of the war itself is well remembered, but the events that led up to it are perhaps not so clear. For years before this there had been friction between Kruger and the large Uitlander population of the Transvaal. In spite of representations from the British Government and even from the Dutch' residents of the Cape who were living on friendly terms with the British, Kruger refused to grant concessions to these foreigners. The greatest grievance of all was that he made it practically impossible for them to gain the franchise. The direct result of the bitterness thus engendered was the famous Jameson Raid, a foolish, and indeed, disastrous move. It increased racial hatred and alienated influential factions from the Uitlanders’ cause, so that their genuine grievances were forgotten. One of the direct icsults was the resignation of Cecil Rhodes as Premier of the Cape. Meanwhile the friction in the Transvaal assumed more and more serious proportions. ' In 1897 Sir Alfred Milner took up his duties as High Commissioner at the Cape. He did all in his power to reach some settlement with Kruger. He met the president in fruitless conference and made every endeavour to settle the dispute by amicable means. Kruger, however, was deaf to all arguments. The fact was that the Boers bad made up their minds to a trial of strength with Great Britain for supremacy in South Africa. At a time that they thought most opportune from the military point of view, the ultimatum was issued. Statesman’s‘Birthday. • Next Saturday will be Mr. Ramsay MacDonald’s 69th birthday. The main facts of this distinguished Scotsman’s career and his rise from potato-digger to Premier is too familiar to require repetition, but there are fascinating stories about his early days in Lossiemouth which will be rare meat for his biographers to feed on one of these days. MacDonald’s first home was a tworoomed cottage on the shores of the Moray Firth. He was a model son, learning much from a gifted grandmother and a stern but devoted mother. The house was spick and span as scouring could make it. “I well remember,” wrote MacDonald in later life, “the halfhour that used to precede kirk. Everybody- was carefully scrutinised by everybody else, so that each speck was removed and every ruffled surface smoothed down.” Let this brief note conclude with the tale of how MacDonald once got a thrashing from a fisherman for borrowing a boat for an afternoon’s sail. Recalling the incident in a recent interview, the old fisherman concerned said:—

“And the loon nearly broke me head with a stane! And whaur’s that deevil o’ a loon noo, think ye ?” “Hanged,” suggested his questioner. “De’il a bit. He’s flinging stanes as big as that hill there at the heads of the damned Tories.”