SLANDERS ON THE PIONEERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 81, 3 October 1938, Page 8

SLANDERS ON THE PIONEERS

(To the Editor.}

Sir, —I desire to join with other writers in protest against the slanders of Mr. J. A. Lee, M.P., against that grand old band of pioneers and their descendants who founded and have built up this Dominion and made it what it is today. One hundred years of enterprise, industry, and thrift will be celebrated in the Centenary during next year, and stand as a monument to the class of people who first came to these shores. When Mr. Lee refers to "runaway convicts and sailors," "adventurers and vagabonds" that "have left their mark on New, Zealand character" he is certainly not going to get away with it in so far as the opinion of 90 per cent, of the population count. In the early days the sailing ships brought to this land the very best of English, Scot, and Irish stock, as also industrious and enterprising emigrants from Norway, Denmark, and Scandinavia, who without the aid of grandmotherly legislation, transformed bush and tussock lands into prosperous and productive farms, and from which source this Dominion obtains the bulk of its revenue. If I know anything of the farmers in Canterbury, Otago, Southland, Marlborough, Hawke's Bay, Manawatu, Rangitikei, Wairarapa, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, Waikato, and North Auckland, of the gold miners in the north, down the West Coast and Central Otago, of the industrialists throughout New Zealand, they will give Mr. Lee direct refutation of his slanders on the 15th. —I am, etc., JOHN ASTON.