TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7357, 9 July 1889, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The Rev. Dr. Macgregor has not been allowed to leave New Zealand without telling us what he thinks about it. It will be gratifying to the feelings of the people of the colony to know that he is delighted both with it and them. " I am greatly charmed with all I have seen of New Zealand," he said to a reporter of the Otago Daily Times. "It fully surpasses all my anticipations. I call it a noble country, and with truth do Scott's words apply, to it :—

• Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the rnoontnin and the liood.' " Going into details the rev. doctor spoke in glowing terme of the rich pastoral country in the Taranaki district, and of the town of Auckland, which he styles " one of the finest cities in the world —the Stockholm of the Southern Hemisphere." It is an amphibious city, more like Stockholm than any city he has ever seen—and Stockholm, be it remembered, said he, is one of the proudest capitals in Europe. Our distinguished visitor was much struck by the scene of desolation presented by the site of the late Tarawera eruption. He is almost reconciled to the loss of the famous Pink,and White Terraces. He declared that—; /

" Even in their time of beauty those terraces never could awaken such emotions as the sight of the region round Tarawera awaken now. He did not know what scene would be presented after the recent eruption in Sumatra, but he had the conviction that there would be no such scene of utter desolation as that which the region of Tarawera presents today. on earth could there be such a> scene to show the forces of nature as that spectacle of desolation. The only thing it could be compared with was a vast glacier, covering milee of country, and burying many feet, in some places hundreds of feet, below it every green thing. In his opinion it was worth while coming all the way from Scotland to see Tarawera alone."

As our , readers know Dγ, Macgregor made a short stay in Christchurch, and went overland to Dunedin, of which latter town he is most lavish, in his praise. " It would be difficult! to say," he remarks, " whether Dunedin or Auckland is the more charmingly situated. I should be inclined to say that they are not comparable, but that they are both best."

As to Dr Macgregor's impressions of Canterbury, we should probably best consult the wishes of our readers if we quote his words in ,full. From Wellington he came on to Lyttelton by one of the splendid steamer* of the Union Steamsnip Company's and he thought the Company really deserved the high name it got from Xew Zealand, pf being probably the best "steamship serv cc in the world. The noble plain on which Chriatohurcb ties greatly delighted him, bnt unfortunately the mist was hanging over and bid the fine moontain range in the distance. Daring the day apent at Christchurch he , was driveii ont to Biccarton, and paid a visit to Mrs Dean 3, the widow—the hale and hearty widow—of the first settler on the Canterbury Plains, and in the tiny little shanty, now going "tcr ruin, he saw the firet inhabited house in that part of NewZealand. Flowing close past the doora of this pleasant country home was the Biver " a name," the doctor went on, ?" which the world no doubt believes comes from the great Avon of England—Shakespeare's river—but which in reality is named after, not an English; but a much humbler Scottish name, the Avon of Lanarkshire." It was not till the doctor reached ishburton that the miafc lifted and allowed him to see the gioriou3 snow-clad mountain chain, the first glance at which seemed as striking as the firat look at the Burmese Oberlandor the Eocky Mountains of America. He had no idea, much though he had read about New Zealand, that so close to the seashore there was such a magnificent range of mountains.

Finally Dr. Macgregor's friends will be interested to learn what what he thinks of our adopted country a3 a whole, and what suggestions he has to offer in regard to oue futuro conduct. In impressive language the doctor said: —

" I leave your shores with the etedfast conviction that God has given you a magnificent country to be kept true to Him. lon have as fine a rV maiM a* can be found

on the faceof v wise vmUL 1 -* climate admirably suited for the perpetuation of, all that is best in the Anglo Saxon stock. .

He had only a «ord to say about our education system, and that was that he was well pleased with it, and he believed it was a better system than they had in. England. Before the reporter left, the doctor assured him that he would never forget the kindness whicti had been so heartily extended to him at every place at which he had touched in New Zealand, and he would carry to Scotland—" dear old Scotland " — recollections of bo pleasant a nature that would for all time remain indelibly fixed on his mind. In regard to advice, the doctor mainly confined himself to two topics. First, he expressed h mself in the most emphatic terms in regard to the destruction of our treee which ie going on. Future generations, he declared, would bitterly deplore the disforesting which is now taking place. He especially referred to the rapid destruction of kauri in the North Island, and stated that he was informed if the present rate of disforesting went on there would be hardly a kauri left in thirty years. New Zealand had a monopoly of this magnificent timber, and it seemed to him that " no language was too forcible to describe such reckless and scandalous extravagance." The Government, he thought, should be asked to " protect to the utmost of their power these great forest giants." The other suggestion which the reverend doctor had to make was in reference to the retention of Maori names of places. He was evidently much pained and not a littlo alarmed at having to deal with such names as " Ngatdnenukukopako," which he especially quoted and stigmatised aa " atrocious." He thinks that it is a wise thing to retain the Maori names whenever they are " musical and tolerably pronounceable to an Anglo-Saxon tongue," but it appeared to him "the height of folly" to inflict upon the ears of the present generation, and still worse on those who are coming after, such names as the one which he quoted with such a rueful air of abhorrence. He pointed out that we have a precedent ready to our hands. He very appositely observed —

"When our Anglo-Saxon forefathers left the old Zealand of the north tor the British shores they wisely retained the British names for the greater, features of nature, such as mountain tops and rivers, but they gaye their Saxon names by far the predominance. And why should the Anglo-Saxons who have come to found a mighty nation in this New Zealand of the south not do the same, and substitute their good Saxoa words for Maori words wherever these are unusable ? '

Of course the whole question is what is or is not usable. To residents in the North Island accustomed to Maori names Ngaruawahia, Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu, and Poro o-Torao flow smoothly from the tongue, and are as musical as the softest Tuscan. It may be, however, that Dr. Macgregor would flee in terror from their mere contemplation. What a pity we could not retain him here until his education in Maori nomenclature had been completed !