CENTENNIAL YEAR

Evening Star, Issue 23292, 14 June 1939, Page 8

CENTENNIAL YEAR

It is a matter for regret that public interest in the Centennial year is so lukewarm. There is every reason why we should take a proper pride in our country, and at the same time call to remembrance what the pioneers have done for us. The men and women who came to tame the wilderness that was New Zealand a hundred years ago and later wrought and suffered, and from their strivings and privations there has emerged! a State on which we can look with satisfaction. From the extremes of poverty this country has passed in a century to one of comparative affluence. In the midst of their many perplexities and difficulties the first settlers from the Mother Country found time and money to build schools, universities, hospitals, and other essential establishments, and! these have been gradually developed with the progress of the country. A difficulty in connection with the Centennial year is that there will not be one celebration and one memorial, but many, for in each provincial district various schemes are in the course of would have been easier, perhaps, if it had been possible* to concentrate on one particular plan, but, on the whole, it is better that the efforts should be distributed in the different localities, so that each may have a memorial marking the passing of a century in building a State. Whatever memorials are adopted, care should be taken to see that in connection with them stress is laid on what we, living in material security and comfort to-day, owe to the pioneers. Many notable events fit in with Centennial year. The vital date is January 29, 1840, when Captain William Hobson, R.N., arrived at the Bay of Island's, empowered, with the consent of the Natives, to proclaim the sovereignty of Queen Victoria over the islands of New Zealand, and to assume the government thereof. Early in the following . month the Treaty of Waitangi was entered into, whereby all rights and pou . ; of sovereignty were ceded to the Queen, all territorial rights being secured to the chiefs and their tribes. The idea that the British Governments of the time were anxious to occupy—or steal, as the Nazis would say—far-off territories is quite contrary to fact. British statesmen considered them a nuisance, and the course they pursued was.induced chiefly by the necessity of protecting the small bands of adventurous British people in these places and maintaining order generally. An illustration of this may be found in the fact that, simultaneously with Hobson’s arrival in Russell, there had landed in Wellington a body of settlers brought out by the New Zealand Company. Among the incidents that will be singled out for special attention next year will be Captain Cook’s rediscovery of New Zealand and the arrival of the missionaries, since they form the prelude to cession and colonisation. Pageants are to form part of the celebrations, and one is to be held in Dunedin in February, for which elaborate plans are being prepared. It was decided that the form of the actual memorial in this city should be a coloured fountain, but there is every hope that a more appropriate plan will be adopted. So far as the celebrations generally are concerned, the Government is doing its best to,make them a success, and it is to be hoped that the people will rise to the occasion and give their help to the plans that have been made to mark the achievements of a hundred years of successful colonising efforts.