NEW ZEALAND HISTORY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 28, 3 February 1930, Page 10

NEW ZEALAND HISTORY

WEALTH OF MATERIAL

AWAITING COMPLETION

(Written by S. Saunders.)

The announcement that the Hon. W. Pcuibcr Reeves is about to issuo a fourth edition of his "Long Whito Cloud"'will come as welcome news to those who have enjoyed the earlier editions of this discursive work and so had their appetites whetted for more of the good things ah^ady provided by its very .versatile author. A normal man is a better historian at seveutythreo than ho could bo. at forty, and a man of affairs is more likely to be strictly judicial than is either the politician ol- the journalist. • Mr. Reeves has an .advantage in both these respects and it is to be hoped lie will be able to give his close personal attention to his latest production. He did scarcely justice to his readers, or to himself in tho third edition of his work, issued four or five years ago,. Even the preface of this edition was left to other hands than bis own, and it scarcely harmonised with the introductions to the previous issues. "WHeu the publishers resolved to bring out a third edition,"'-his collaborator explained, "they asked me to bring it up to date with as little interference with the text as possible. However, .-after, some interviews with Mr. Reeves, lie ] agreed to help, and we have dojie the '. work by means' of a division of labour. He took the book in ' and up to the date of Mr. Secldon's death. Tiro, earlier period, that before the end of the Maori Wars and tho initiation of Sir Julius Vogel's Public Work's .policy, did not need to have much done to it. Mr. Reeves added half, a dozen fresh : paragraphs, expanded a few others, and modified a passage hero and there: That wa3 about all. The part of tho book, how TeA'er, dealing with the. years between 1872 and 1906 le treated very differently, adding three new chapters, cutting out whole pages, and making heavy additions as well as alterations in various chapters."- Thirty odd years ago I had somewhat similar experiences with Mr. Reeves, and I can recall-!them without any harsh thought for either the,author or h^is later collaborator. '». SOME LAPSES. The arrangement ..of the matter in the third .edition iof the "Long White Cloud" makes it a tittle difficult to determine whether the author or his assistant is writing, but Mr. Reeves-him-self plainly is responsible for a confusion of ages in introducing the group of young men that entered the House of Representatives simultaneously in 1887. "Sir Joseph Ward," he says in shaping a compliment ;to the present Prime Minister, "had been one of a group of young men who entered, tlie House on tho same day. . These, Sir Joseph Ward, Sir James Allen, Sir Thomas Mackenzie,. Sir' Westby Percival, Dr. Fitchett, Sir, James Carroll, Mr. George Hutchison, aud the .writer of this book, all became more or less well known in the Dominion, but Ward, though the youngest, attracted attention at once." As. a matter of fact, -Mr. Reeves himself'was younger than was the budding party leader, as also was Sir James Carroll, and our author is too modest 'in implying that his own progress in the House was less .rapid than that of the alert young man from Awarua. Anyway, it is. safe to. say that at.,no.subsequent election has the Parliament of the Dominion secured sTich an acquisition of talent as it did iiv Ibß7. The lapses of-Mr. Reeves's assistant wore much more obvious than was tlie lapse of'Uis chief. In .a well-deserved eulogy of General Russell, he describes tho gallant leader of the- Now Zealand Division in France during the Great. War as .'"'a nephew of a former Premier, the late fir William Russell. "As everyone knows General Russell, has won distinctions enough to satiate any gallant soldier, but blood-relationship to. a Prime Minister is not among them, since Sir William Russell, . his uncle, ,personally the most, chivalrous of all political leaders, never wa's at the head, of a. Government. Th". same authority deducts six years off tho poli^ tical career of the Right Hon. J. G. Coates, and embarks upon a denuueiatioii of the. three party system, which Mr. Reeves never would have, uttered, much as he might have regretted the development of the system. BLAZING THE WAY.' " Looking through the Bibliography compiled each/year by, that most useful of State officials,, the Government Statistician, one cannot help being impressed by the absence from the list of any work entitled to bo regarded as a 1 history of New ' Zealand., ,Captain Cook's "Voyages',",,of course, \tell us something about the appearance of the ■ country and its people, but it was not until seventy or eighty years after, the ■ last visit of the great voyager that the world began ;'to realise,.the importance ofI,his discovery.. The first catalogued ' "History of' New Zealand;" Recording to the official Bibliography, was writ-, ten by Mi\ R. A. Sherrin and Mr. J; ] 11. Wallace, and after being edited by ; Mr. .T. W. Leys, appeared among-the Brett. Historical Series iv IS9O, only forty years ago. Tha,t it would be com- [ preherisive could not be expected; but 1 Mr. Leys' ■ name was a guarantee of its \ general accuracy. VFive years later Mr. C. W. Rusden's history made its ap- ! pearance, having first been published \ in Melbourne, land was the occasion of [ a law suit, in which Mr. John Bryee, Minister of. Native Affairs in three successive Governments, obtained a coin- . pleto refutation of the charges made ' against him, and very substantial damages. In tho following year : the' first 1 volume of Mr. Alfred Sanders's history ' was available, to be followed by the second volume three years later. Mr. Saunders presented facts as he had . known them and interpreted them, but '. his attention as an author was given . rather to the -politicians than to the country itself.-' "In 1898 Mr. W. P. . Reeves produced the first edition of his ', "Long White "Cloud," which made ac--1 ceptable' reading from the first without | imposing unduly tho dry-bones of history upon its readers. Upon these works have followed during the present century more or. less fragmentary . contributions to New Zealand history ! from Mr. P. F. Irvine, Mr. 0. T. J. ', Alpcrs, Dr. -.0. H. Scholcueid, Mr. S. ■ Payne, Mr. A. M. Shrimpton, Mr. A. i B. Mulgan, Dr. Harrop, and Mr. J. B. , Condleli'e, all ■ admirable in their way, but an entirely satisfactory history of ; New, Zealand still has to be produced. WAITING MATERIAL. ' None of the writei'3 just mentioned lias covered the whole field of Now Zealand history. None of thenij indeed, has attempted to. do so. They all, however, have provided, in greater or ' small measure, material that will be '. very useful to the New Zealand historian when he arrives. He will be a patrio* his contemporaries should delight to honour. His labours will bring him neither fame nor profit, and his advent still is afar off. Meanwhile some Government which could not, or a any rate should not, think of subsidising a chronicler of its own doings,

might do much to facilitate tho labours of the right man when he : appears. About tho Ilouso of Parliament and in other repositories there are thousands of books Mid 'pamphlets, returns and records, increasing ; n bulk, iind sinking in oblivion every year, that would be invaluable to the enthusiast who in the near or distant future will tell the story of the Dominion. Ths Parliamentary Library, an exarnplo of order and effioifmey to all other institutions of the kind, docs its best to preserve the matter thrust upon it in good order and condition, and succeeds in a remarkable measure. But if the staff of this'invaluable institution were- strengthened, and teachers and scholars- —not excepting university professors and university students—wero encouraged to make use or! its resources, the general knowledge of national affairs would be muuh more widely disseminated than it is at the present time.' It is not an uncommon thing for even so lowly i a per-: son as n journalist to be consulted by a. university student as to tho subject of: his thesis, an academical exercise which may help him along to a degree entitling him to a gown of particular shape-or colour. It has often occurred to me, when turning over the'wealth of matter available in tho Parliamentary Library, that if university students had access to this material, they might put their academical exercise to moro profitable use than it appears to yield at the present time. They might even leave behind them material that would bo useful,to the historian of the future.