SPECIAL PROGRESS ISSUE OF “THE MAIL”

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 29 April 1937, Page 11

SPECIAL PROGRESS ISSUE OF “THE MAIL”

ONE OF MANY TRIBUTES r , [To The Editor] J Sir, —Your special Progress Issue rf 1 24th April reached me this evening and after several hours’ careful study "of it, 1 I felt compelled to dash off a note to l compliment you upon it. It is an his--1 torical document. It records, in stirring 2 language, Nelson’s stirring history, and in picking up the threads before they are lost, “The Mail” has rendered signal service to this embryo nation. The progress of “The Mail” itself, till it ranks 1 with the leading newspapers of the ■j Empire in news-service and useful inj formation, is no small achievement. Greetings to “The Mail”! The arresting history which you have so interestingly produced has 2 provided the best evening’s entertains ment and education that I have had for many a day. The history you have t so carefully gathered and recorded 3 should replace the insipid pages too - often found in our school-books. Brun--1 ner’s trip with its hardships is not less 2 interesting and enthralling than Scott’s - Expedition. The Redwood . pioneering is just as good a picture (and a real story) as any ranch and broncho “yarn” ; of the Western States. The Gold Rush ' story makes one’s fingers itch to gather dish, pick-axe, blanket, tea and flour, : and go off “on the ‘go,’ ” as our forefathers did, seventy years ago. The ■ account of Captain Arthur Wakefield’s services to Nelson makes one wonder whether your City quite realises its debt to his memory. Whether the Heaphys. Haasts. Hochstetters. or Mackays were greater pioneers than the Rochforts. Barnicoats, Cotterills, Brunners, or Travers, does not matter, though the story of Brunner’s last pipe, of his faithful Maori friend Ekehu, and of his st>o days in the wilds with never a word of English spoken, are gripping incidents. Whether the Reays, Lucas’s, or Redwoods did more, spiritually or intellectually, than their fellows in other provinces, does not matter. Whether the Cliffords, Welds, Coopers, or Morses laid the foundations of fortune with wool, does not matter either. They were all of them Giants! Thenwives (if they had one) were Heroines. To all of them, whose services you have done so much to preserve in our memories, and whose claim upon us of this generation you have so ably established, Salute! And to the “Nelson Mail.” Salute! —I am, etc., - x “DAD.” Christchurch, 27th April.