MEN OF CHARACTER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22434, 15 September 1947, Page 6

MEN OF CHARACTER

RACIAL GREATNESS COURAGE : LEADERSHIP MEMORIAL HALL NAMED “The Maori tribes have a great record as men of valour and distinction, and more important still, men of great character and leadership,” declared the Governor-General, Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Freyberg, addressing the Ruatoria gathering on Saturday prior to the official opening of the Uepohatu Memorial Hall at Whakarua Park. “I remember hearing in 1922 a great writer address the students, of Edinburgh University on the subject of courage. In the course of his address he said: “All goes if courage goes! “How true that is!” His Excellency pointed out that the younger generation of Maoris possessed a great inheritance. The nation had a great record of valour in two world wars, and had established itself as one of the great people of the British Commonwealth.

“You will only remain a great race while you continue to produce great men—men of the type you sent to serve with the Maori Battalion,” he added.

Speaking of the naming of the hall, His Excellency said that he had been asked to confer upon it the name of Uepohatu, after an ancestress of the portion of the Ngatiporou tribe which occupied the land on which Whakarua Park and the memorial hall now stand. Translated into English, this name meant "The Shaker of the Stone Foundations,” and he regarded that definition as very fitting to be applied to the achievements of the Maori Battalion.