"PETONE'S DAY"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 18, 22 January 1940, Page 8

"PETONE'S DAY"

Mr. G. London. Mayor of Petone, after extending a welcome to the visitors, expressed pride that Petone should have been chosen as the site of Wellington's Centennial memorial. "This is Petone's day," he said.

When Wakefield and his companions bad entered the Wellington Harbour 100 years ago they had found, a stretch of flat land at the head- of the harbour —a stretch which today constituted the prosperous and fertile Hutt Valley—and there they originally settled. Later the pioneers had transferred their attention to Wellington, but the few who had remained at the head of the harbour had founded a settlement which had grown and prospered until today the Hutt Valley contained 40,000 people and the commercial and industrial importance was almost a challenge to Wellington City : itself. The people of the city, moreover, had learned to appreciate the value of flat land. •

The'residents of the Hutt Valley had felt very' seriously their responsibility to see the memorial project brought to' a successful conclusion, , and he was pleased to say. that the memorial pavilion represented the work of local people, showing" that'■trie spirit of the pioneers^the spirit of enterprise and courage—was by no means dead among British peoples. He hoped that the next 100 years of New Zealand's history would be characterised, by progress similar to that of the. past century, and that when the second 1 tury was reached the ■ inhabitants of this Dominion would be still enjoying the privileges of democracy and freedom under. the British Crown as they were today.