AFTER 50 YEARS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11948, 19 May 1933, Page 5

AFTER 50 YEARS

AIR OWEN GALLAGHER VISITS WELLINGTON

WHAT HE TOLD .-t PRESSMAN "•PRETTY WELL TIED UP WITH MY FARM” Walking with the aid of a stick, but still sprightly and very - much alert mentally, Mr Owen (Gallagher, a pioneer Poverty Bay settler, has been an interesting and interested visitor to Wellington this week. To Mr Gallagher the visit has been one of the biggest events of his life, says the Post, for it is the first time lie has returned to AYellington since he passed through in the far-away days of 18S7. Only oneo during that period has Mr Gallagher been to Auckland, and for the rest of tho time he has, as lie put it, "been pretty well tied up with the farm” at the back of Gisborne. Being "pretty well tied up with the farm” has not meant that Air Gallagher buried himself away from the outside world. Indeed, it is the (Outside world and its politics that has had most of Air Gallagher’s interest at present. Despite bis 76 years the old gentleman has a remarkably thorough knowledge of local politics, and his clear and vivid memory enables him to recall with a wealth of accurate detail the most important, political events in Now Zealand’s history during the last fifty odd years. This (is not surprising as (for 24 years Air Gallagher was chairman of the late Sir James Carroll’s election committee. With many a chuckle and a twinkle in his eyes h© recalled to a reporter many of the political battles in his district in what, to him at any rate, were the palmy days ol New Zealand politics. “Jimmy” Can-oil was obviously his hero, and it was with a touch of sadness that he mentioned that he was the last of the great Maori statesman’s original election. committee.

Thirty-five years ago -Mr Gallagher was mainly responsible for the forming of the Kia Ora Co-operative Dairy Company and lie was a director for 30 years until a couple of years ago. lie recalled that when, the factory was first started butter was made by hand and sold around the district for Sell or Id per lb. Even then it was impossible to get cash for the butter and its value had to be taken out in groceries or in some other form of barter. In those days, too, Mr Gallagher,- after digging and shipping a load of potatoes, sold them in Auckland for £1 5s a ton. Onions went for 2s a sack, and maize sold at . 2s n bushel. Land also was cheap, being £7 to £8 an acre in that district. It Jumped to £IOO in the boom period. In boom times the Kia Ora factory paid out over 2s a pound for butterfat, but those days have long since gone, and the last pay-out of the factory was at the rate of <d per 1 lb., a figure somewhere near what waa paid when the factory was started. And so the sturdy old pioneer has lived through an almost.complete economic cycle. With him it has been a full life and a happy one. He lias hv*d by the land and for the land with the independence and thought and action that characterised so many of those who battled with Nature m those early days. “There is ono tiling I say and that is that I liavo never asked for a job in New Zealand” b 0 said with pardonable pride.’“And l for 47 years up till last year I gave, at least one day a month of my time to the public. I have never been turned down for any pub.m body I stood for.” In those words stood revealed! the spirit of the man and the spirit of his og<>. But Mr Gallagher has also done a little more for the country of his adoption. He has .12 children, 42 grandchildren, and two great-grandchil di eii.