FIFTY YEARS AGO

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 51, 1 March 1930, Page 17

FIFTY YEARS AGO

THE CINDERELLA CITY

.WELLBrGTON & > PUBLIC EVOKES

"POST'S" EMPHATIC PROTESTS

"The litter nogleet and indifference ■with -which the interests of this city have been treated by successive Governments is ■so very remarkable that somo special reason needs to bo sought adequately to. explain it," declared tho editor of tho "Evening Post" in his leading article' of Monday, 23rd February, 1880,.'headed "Wellington and Public Works." "Let any Wellingtonian pay a visit to Christchurch," Dunedin, Timaru, Oaniaru, or Invercargill, or even to Auckland, and he •will find in every direction signs of business life and activities. Trade may be temporarily dull hr the towns, but tho back country has been opened up by railways, and the dullness is of brief duration. With the wool season and the harvest come fresh, stir of business and renewed progress, so that there is seldom any • very protracted stagnation. The mere fact of the trains constantly running to. and fro on tho numerous railways and their . branches seems to supply a sort of healthy movement in the commercial atmosphere,.in tho same' way that proper ventilation secures tho adequate circulation of tho air wo breathe. But let him return to Wellington, and what does ho find? Universal dullness and depression, business stagnant in all branches; anything like progress seemingly dead and buried; and streots full of unemployed; numbers of men still being, discharged or likely to be; a general cry of poverty and distress." CAUSE OF STAGNATION. The reason was, ho maintained, that Wellington was, for all practical purposes, as completely cut on; from her back country as if it were on the other side of Cook Straits. Wellington had, it was true, "a. few jnilea of railway carefully' laid oS so as to pass through all the most unprofitable country in tho whole district," while the good and payable country was "not even touched, although e'loso at hand. A very weak and mild beginning had also been made of another railway to tho West Coast of tho North Island, which, "if over finished," would open up another area of fino and valuable country. But that was all. Several'years before tho then1 Government had "distinctly promised that the more level positions of the line along the Wairarapa plains, from the foot of the Bimutakas to Masterton, should be gone on with simultaneously with the heavy works on the Eimutaka, so that when tlie Jattcr were completed the former would also be ready, for. opening." But the line had been thWugh to Fcatherston for nearly two years and the continuation to Masterton was. not even yet finished. This, the editor roundly declared, was due to the apathy of tho . Wellington people, who, by listening to party catch-cries, had allowed their representation in Parliament to be split up, instead of pulling to further, tho progress and prosperity of their city and district. The result •was that "a few men and wheelbarrows- 5-- 1 wcro . employed ,on. ono'. small section of the Wclliugton : Foxton rail : way, "while all other places had public ■works showered on thorn with a liberal hand." ■ , • ■"■'' . x , Next day the "Post" returned with great determination to tho attack; a 'deputation .of the Wellington City members waited on the Government, a petition asking the Mayor' to call a public meeting on tho matter was signed in the course of a day or two by 1400 people, and tho desired meeting was called for the following Monday. MAORI BRAVES AND THE; COMMISSION; During the last week in February, 18S0, there was the then usual crop of canards with regard to Native outrages, circulated ono day only to be contradicted the next; but the Eoyal Commission on Native affairs ; had now got down to work, and its emphatic statement that tho Government would sec that all just claims made by tho Maoris would bo duly met and that ample reserves would be secured to them, had a distinctly reassuring and pacifying effect. At the meeting o£ the Commission at Hawera on February 22nd wo are told:—"Over 300 Natives wero present—mostly braves in their day, and many bearing traces of hardship and sufCoring in their wars against Europeans, but no longer .having any stomach for fighting. They Wore mostly Hono Pihaina?s-, and Kaf one's people. Manaia, who'is a leading chief, -was also present, and among them was Te Whiti's " balf:brother Pehire, his father having been Ware Pori, a Wellington' Native, killed 'in the early days in a stand-up fight with a European "blacksmith at NgahauraManaia, who was a Maori of the old school was very guarded in his language in addressing the Commission. "One horso cannot haul three tons;" he said, "neither can I speak for my ■people when they are not here." Hone Pihama expressed himself as perfectly satisfied with the words of the Commission, and Katene also said he thought lie had done the best 4e could for his people by joining the Government cause. "When being examined Katene said:—'ln the ■' old days, when there was fighting, I was always thero against tho Europeans?'; but, with singular1 modesty, he mado no reference to the fact that he afterwards greatly distinguished himself in fighting for us. Indeed, he is quite a curiosity in tho way of woun.ds, having received enough to kill a dozen men, onco being shot through the body by a Maori'only threo feet away, arid tho bullet afterwards going through tho leg of a man named McDonald. Katono has been shot in all in a dozen places, and has haiJ his nose broken with a blow from a rifle.' " The shifting of tho Armed. Constabulary camp to Ohatclio, :iear. Mania's place, greatly delighted tho old chief, who sent a lot of his people to dig potatoes and get pigs and peaches for his "guests," while he superintended operations. Presents of food wero also sent to tho camp by Titokawaru and other chiefs, and oven by tho Maori "prophet," To Whiti himself. It transpired that the shots, about which thoro had been so much bother the previous week "wero fired by (Major) Kemp at a bag of sugar which the Ngatewhiti tribe had placed on a post on the disputed land, as a token of ownership. Kemp, on_ finding it there, at once fired at it, to indicate his defiance and his resolution to challenge their • title."