MR FOX AT TUTAENUI.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 2, Issue 58, 10 February 1868, Page 36

MR FOX AT TUTAENUI.

The following account of Mr and Mrs Fox’s. 'reception bythesettlers at Tutaenui is from the Wanganui Chro- * ’nicle. As iauch. wteregt is felt in the event by the settlers thereabout, we have much pleasure in now giving a detailed account of it. The village was gaily decorated with arches with ’ suit able mottoes,' composed of evergreens l&d flowers, while numerous flags and streamers waved in the wind. Mr Fox and lady arrived about 3 o’cloek, amid the cheers and greetings of those assembled. At the entrance to the village the road was lined by schoolchildren, who sang a hymn: it was really a fine sight, and suggestive of .. the growing population of the district. An address was read and presented by Mr Alexander Milne, M.P.C., opposite the « Traveller’s Rest.” It was signed by nearly 100 settlers in the immediate vicinity, and ran as follows :

We, the undersigned settlers of Tutaenui and vicinity, congratulate ourselves on having the pleasure oT welcoming your good lady and self back in safety amongst us. And we take the preeent opportunity of thanking jou for the able,manner m which you advocated the cause of the New Zealand settlers while on your sojourn in Engjand, and we further beg to express our desire that you and Mrs Fox may belong spared to remain amongst us.

Mr Fox, who was received with said he could not find words to express to the friends he saw before him how deeply Mrs Fox and , himself felt the great kindness which t they had exhibited in giving them so - cordial and hearty a welcome. Since they had last met he had travelled through many lands, and met with much kindness both from friends and • strangers, but he felt all the time that. • he' was away from his home, and it was not till he got back to Rangitikei that he felt he had a home where he hoped to live and die. It bad been his lot in other periods of his life to participate in the work of developing the : resources of a newly-settled district,' aud he could honestly say that there iwas no position in which he was more'happy than he w..s as a simple colonist, surrounded by men engaged in the same good work. He had°no wish to leave Raugitikei again, and he hoped to live and die there. (Loud cheers.) He felt very much gratified at the allusion made m their kind address to the part taken by him in re pelling the calumnies which had been . circulated in England against the colonists. He felt that he had done no more than his duty. 'When he reached England he found John Bull. irritated at some small addition to the income tax, caused by the New Zealand war, and ready to believe anything bad of those whom he believed were the cause of an increase of his burdens, while no particle of sympathy troubled his manly breast for the unfortunate colonists who had been the victims of disturb- , ances which they had not provoked. Scarcely a day elapsed but some letter, or leader, or paragraph, appeared in the principal London and country papers .in which the colonists were ma ligned as a blood-thirsty and barbarous : people, seeking only to benefit themselves by the plunder of an iniquitous ■ war. There were New Zealand colonists enough in England, but not one of them ever opened his mouth or took up a pen to refute these calumnies; and he determined from the first that not one such falsehood should meet . his eye without his immediate denial. -■Mr Fox then alluded to the case oi Mr Chesson, the Secretary of the Aborigines Protection Society, who, he said, was weak enough to rash into the .arena. All that I had to do with the silly man, said Mr Fox, was what you may have seen at a fair when a pickpocket is detected, and some one Bays, Don’t put that man under the - pump,’* and assuredly if . any detected •rogue was “ under the pump,” it was that Mr Chesson. The Times gave him two slashing leaders; the Pall MaU., Gazette three; the Saturday Review one or two; the Spectator, the Globe, and nearly all the best t papers (ten or a. dozen) were . jn a single week, and I had nothing more to do than congratulate myself on his haying put him- ■;. this; Mr " s kn r 'easy '-'one ';”;k ■ -• fired off. their:little; guns; %■ but.as soon *;as fhat there was ao’me one ialseboods andwas jdo

it, they slunk iatO'obscurily, and from a period of about four or five months after his return to England, not a single instance of any attack on the colonists in any English paper had,met his eye. fact was, the English public had In ignorance adopted these views, led i>y-a-few slanderous persons : but when the great English heart was appealed to, and the truth honestly laid before it, it ceased to entertain the. unworthy suspicions of the colonists into which it had been deluded, and if he had in any way contributed, however little, to such a result, the acknowledgment of his services by his fellow-settlers this day was the greatest reward that could be conferred upou him. After some further remarks on the prosperity of the district, &c., -Mr F. said that the lives of himself and his dear wife had been mercifully preserved during thentravels, in many seen and no doubt more unseen dangers. He trusted that they had been preserved by vidence for a few more years of work among their fellow-colonists to aid in developing the resources of the country, and in promoting its religious, its social, and its political welfare; and when a few more years of such work should be accomplished, that they should be followed to the grave by honest men like those he saw before him, whose hearts, sympathising in their life work, might mourn with friendly sorrow for their departure.

At the conclusion of Mr Fox’s speech the old settlers came forward to shake hands and congratulate him on his return, while Mrs Fox was beseiged by the ladies and children.