AFTER FIFTY YEARS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 99, 28 April 1909, Page 16

AFTER FIFTY YEARS.

MR. KENNAWAY'S RETIREMENT AN INTERESTING- PERSONALITY. A LIFE OF OFFICIAL COS1 FIDENCES. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 19th Mavch. A very considerable slice of the official history of New Zealand falls within the period covered by the official career of the retiring Secretary to the Department of the High Commissioner. Apart from the fact that he arrived in Canterbury within three years of the settlement, Mr. Kennaway's official duties as an officer of the- General Government commenced before the abolition of the provincial institutions. He has served in London under all the distinguished gentlemen who have represented the colony a^id Dominion as Agent-General and High Commissioner, and he was for a time himself AgentGeneral, during the interregnum before the arrival of Sir Westby Perceval to succeed Sir F. Dillon Bell. PIONEERING IN NEW ZEALAND. Mr. Walter Kennaway belongs to a Devonshire family. He was born at Exeter, a son of the late William Kennaway, and is a cousin of the present Sir John Kennaway, M.P. Walter Kennaway was quite a young man when he sailed for New Zealand in 1853 in the barque "Tasmania." He settled down in the new province of Canterbury to the hard pioneering work of the genuine settler. Mr. Kennaway's farm was on the Heathcote River, near Christchurch, and there he did his own ploughing, milking, and general farm work. Actuated by the spirit of adventure that was then abroad in the land, he soon undertook some explorations in the outlying parts of the province, and eventually, with his brothers who preceded him to the colony, took up pastoral runs,. IN THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL. ' It was in 1868, while the brothers Kennaway were in the Mackenzie Country, that Mr. Walter first entered the Provincial Council of Canterbury, as representative for a district called, from its most distinctive feature, "Mount Cook." His next electorate was Seadown, an appropriate name for, the country lying round the present thriving town of Timaru. Three years after entering the council, Mr. Kennaway took office as Provincial Secretary and Secre tary of Public Works under Mr. Superintendent Rolleston. One of his colleagues, without portfolio, was the late Sir John. Hall. Those were days of large things in the history, of Canterbury. The province of the plains was, perhaps the most progressive and well developed in New Zealand. In the North Island the native wars strangled progress and depleted the Treasury ; in the South, Otago had not yet recovered from "the stagnation that followed the first dazzling prosperity of the goldfields. But Canterbury was turning -.her resources to the best account, and Mr. Kennaway was wont to bring down a budget of a million poiuids. Many measures of great importance to the future of the province fell within his term of office. EDUCATION ENDOWMENTS. The Education Ordinance was n<>e of the most important. It had already be- | come quite apparent that the diKeient denominations would be unable to provide for the education of their children. In some cases where there were one hundred children to be educated, there was accommodation for only fifty. Of course there was opposition, and Sir. Kennaway, who at the time was chairman of Hie Church of England School and a member of the synod, had to withdraw the Bill the first year it was brought down. Next year public opinion had been better educated and the ordinance was passed. The Hon. W. Montgomery was chairman of the first Board of Education in Canterbury, and Mr. Kennaway was*a member. As soon a& the board was constituted, its first work was to provide school buildings all over the province. Another important step for the present welfare of the province was the reservation of areas of land as endowments for certain public institutions. This was portion of \lv. Kennaway's policy as head of the Provincial Government, and it was fortunately carried through. His Government set aside 300,000 acres of land, chiefly pastoral runs, as a liberal endowment for the School of Agriculture (now Lincoln College, which received 10,000 acres), Canterbury College, the Museum, the Boys' High School, and kindred institutions. HARBOUR. WORKS. As Secretary of Works, Mr. Kennaway was closely associated with the first harbour works in Canterbury. The first breakwater in Lytteßon was commenced under his supervision, and he also got under weigh the preliminary works at what is to-day the second port of Canterbury, and one of the leading ports of the Dominion — Timaru. Sir John Coode, the famous harbour engineer, was consulted, and one of his representatives came to the colony and spent some mouths in 1873 in close observation of the tides. The improvement of the poit of Timaru has been a history of successful perseverance, but no amount of expense and study subsequently could have produced the present results if the preliminary work and the policy finally adopted had been unsound. In 1874 Mr. Kennawsy came to England to take up a position in the office of the Agent-General. Mr. Kennaway had been on a visit to England in 1863, when he married. He now came here for good, and was succeeded as Provincial Secretary, etn., by the Hon. W. Montgomery. TN THE LONDON OFFICE. The London offices of the New Zealand Government have ahvajs been in the same spot in Victoria-street. Originally they were "7, Westminster Chambers," but the numbering was altered many years -ago, and all New Zealanders now recognise " 13, Victoria-street " as a spot particularly their own in the world's metropolis. Dr. Featherston used to occupy the room at the northern end, now Mr. Kennaway's, and Sir Julius Vogel also. But Sir F. Dillon Bell preferred the one at the other end, and that has been the office of the chief ever since. In the great days of the Vogel immigration policy there were separate rooms on the floor below for the immigration work, and there thousands of the men and women who are respected as leading citizens in New Zealand to-day, made their final resolve to leave the Old Land. For more than thirty-foui years Mr. Kennaway has watched and in part directed, practically the whole of the relations between New Zealand and the Mother Country. He has been the confidant of the different Agents-General in the many and varied matters — financial and otherwise — which have to bo dealt with in the Mother Country. He has had his finger on the pulse of the money market in such a way as to be able to makes the soundest investments for the colony and Dominion, and he has, withal, been the ever-courteous friend and adviser ot every New Zealander who has sought his personal acquaintance in London. Such a figure cannot pass unnoticed from a position

he has held for so long. His retirement alone will seem like a transformation of tho office. Many a New Zoalander, indeed, who makes a second visit to the Old Country after the middle of this yeai', will hardly recognise the office of the High Commissioner in the absence of two personalities — Mr. Reeves and Mr. Kennaway — who have been there so long. Mr. Kennnway was made an officer of the French Academy in 1889, when he represented New Zealand at the exhibition at Paris. Two years later he received from Queen Victoria the decoralion of C.M.G., a distinction well earned in his transaction? with the Imperial departments.