ESTABLISHED 1875. Manawatu Daily Times. The Oldest Manawatu Journal. Conducted by E. D. HOBEN, Editor & Proprietor. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 1908. THE DAYS OF OLD.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 496, 24 August 1908, Page 4

ESTABLISHED 1875. Manawatu Daily Times. The Oldest Manawatu Journal. Conducted by E. D. HOBEN, Editor & Proprietor. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 1908. THE DAYS OF OLD.

The determination to hold a commemorative service in memory of the bravo dead who foil at Te Ngutu o te Manu forty years ago will recall many memories to old settlers of the troublous times of their youth. Taranaki to-day is a smiling land in which sleek cattle browse on wondrous green pastures and a general air of peace and contentment reigns, but within tho memory of many a man living it was a theatre of strife and bloody war. In the old days Taranaki must have carried a very large Maori population rivalling in that respect the thickly-populated areas of the East Coast about the Bay of Plenty, and that they were a virile and warlike race is not only evidenced by their history but by the fact that to this day on nearly every prominent knoll—and there are parts of the province where abrupt and isolated volcanic hills are to bo mot every few yards—the evidence of old fortifications'are still to be'seen. As many as half-a-dozen old fighting pahs are sometimes in view from ono spot on the roadside, and many more if a hill is ascended. Then, as now, brown as well as white, Taranaki produced sturdy men whether for the mimic battle of tho football field or the stern game of war, and it was with these men that tho gallant Von Tempsky, one of tho bravest souls in the heroic story of our colonisation, fought—with and against. Any racial bitterness that, ever existed in Now Zealand—very little ever did exist—has long since passed away and the descendants of tho warriors on both sides are to bo seen to-day driving iu perfect amity in their milk carts to the factories that mark every stream in Taranaki. But it is well to recall sometimes that our fathers had to face a very differ-

ent condition of things and to battle with very much greater drawbacks in the days which are still fresh in the memory of many of them than we have ever dreamed of, and had .they been able to look into the future they would have regarded the amenities of our life to-day and its conveniences and degree of ease and comfort, its prosperity, and the certainty and accessibility of markets, as an almost impossible milleninm.