NELSON’S CENTENNIAL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 19 June 1941, Page 4

NELSON’S CENTENNIAL

■ ON the Ist of February next will fall the hundredth anniversary of the foundation of our city and province as the second major enterprise of . Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s New! Zealand Company. Before that will occur the centenaries of important events in local history, such as the arrival of the Company expedition ships off Astrolabe and their entry to Wakatu harbour with the surveyors and other Company men aboard un- , der the command of Captain Arthur Wakefield to make preparations for the settlement. These are important occasions in Nelson’s history and in time of peace would have been enthusiastically j celebrated on a large scale by Nelj sonians of a hundred years after. Unj happily the end of our first century as a settlement finds us deeply preoccupied in a war the proportions of , which dwarf the Napoleonic menace which seared deep into the England j which our pioneers left to come to New Zealand. The question then arises whether we should pass these occasions by unmarked or whether the province should combine to make some acknowledgment of a hundred years of achievement notwithstanding that we live under the shadow of a tyrant who has far outdone Bonaparte. To consider this is the purpose of the meeting of all interested—and what Nelsonian is not interested in his province’s past—to be held in the : j City Council Chambers to-night, i j There are two immediate issues to I be decided by that meeting: whether 1 1 celebrations shall be held; whether J steps shall be taken to have the Early I Settlers’ memorial on the Church Hill I completed. After decision is reached j on these two questions then details j can be further discussed supposing ! action is agreed upon. Most people will feel that no jollification on a grand scale can be entered upon. On the other hand it is scarcely worthy of the pioneers that we should not feel ourselves resourceful enough to re-enact some of our own past and join in paying homage to those stouthearted early settlers with an enthusiasm which we all know would have characterised similar functions held in their day—and they had their trials as well as us.