TARAWERA VICTIMS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 140, 15 June 1936, Page 10

TARAWERA VICTIMS

MEMORIAL SERVICE

ON SITE OF OLD CHURCH

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

ROTORUA, This Day.

An interesting ceremony took plac« at Te Wairoa, overlooking Lake Taraw£ra, yesterday, when the Bishop of Aotearoa, the Rt. Rev. F. A. Bennett, conducted a commemoration Service for the 150 Maoris and Europeans who perished in the Tarawera eruption on the night of June 10, 1886.

The service was held in a small bush, clearing on the site of the old. church, which was one of a number of buildings demolished by the eruption. Among the congregation were a number of elderly Maoris who were living at Te Wairoa at the time of the eruption as young men and wonien, but who subsequently removed with their tribe, the Tuhourangi, to Whakarewarewa when their lands were lam waste by volcanic ash and mud. A HISTORIC BELL. The old bell, which was sounded bofore the service, was recently recovered from the ruins of the old church by Mr. Cecil Way, a grandson of the Rev. S. M. Spencer, who commenced work among the Maoris at Te Wairoa nearly one hundred years ago. At the conclusion of the ceremony Mr. Way entrusted the bell to the care of Bishop Bennett, who, at a subsequent meeting of the Tuhourangi tribe, dismissed plans for erecting a suitable memorial on .the site of the church. Thi§ will probably take the form of a suitably carved canopy under which the old church bell will be hung. A wakahuia or carved Maori casket 175 years old, which survived the eruption, was used to take up the collection, which will form the nucleus of a fund for the erection of a memorial. LOWERING~LA~KE LEVEL SUPPORT OF SUGGESTION Further support for a suggestion that. the level of Lake Rotomahana should be lowered, with a view to ascertaining whether or not the Pink and White Terraces were destroyed by the eruption of Mount Tarawera fifty years ago, is given by Mr. G. M. I Fowlds, of Auckland, president of the New Zealand Tourist League (states the "New Zealand Herald"). In spite of the statement of the Minister in charge of Tourist and Health' Resorts, the Hon. F. Langstone, that no action is to be taken by the Government, Mr. Fowlds is hopeful that the lake may be lowered, and in a letter he suggests a possible method. "Though there is said to be about 140 ft of water in Lake Rotomahana over the approximate site of the terraces, there is still considerable. therj mal activity indicated by the steam ing cliffs and the warm water of the lake." the letter states. "If by the lowering of the lake it was found thai the terraces had gone, it is probable that considerable thermal -activity ir the form of geysers and siliceous forming water might well warrant the work, especially as things appear tc be dying out in Rotorua itself. "To avoid the preliminary cost o: excavating the 100 ft hill betweei Lakes Rotomahana and Tarawera, i might be possible to syphon the water.' in pipes across the isthmus and, a: the lake was being lowered, the are; near the site of the terraces coult jbe sluiced. If it was found that th< terraces had been destroyed, theft tni lake could allowed to refill, am no harm would be done. "Bearing in mind the wondern* ! beauty of the terraces and the grea j draw they would be to our touns ! traffic, and the fact that we have no I thing like them (indeed it is doubtfu I whether in any part of the world wa I their equal to be seen), surely tn< (scheme justifies close investigation. I would be difficult to say that a con ; siderable expense in the effort is no | warranted."