THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1906. TO-DAY'S CELEBRATIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13304, 10 October 1906, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1906. TO-DAY'S CELEBRATIONS.

. . ♦ — Two popular functions happen to occur together: the fixed feast which commemorates the arrival in Auckland of the Duchess of Argylc and the Jane Gifford with their bands of pioneers; and the movable feast which is kept by our Auckland workmen and their friends in celebration of the dignity of Labour. Nor is it unfitting that they should be coupled together, for however our old colonists and our new unionists may differ upon details, they represent together elements without which Now Zealand could not be what it is. Of the Old Colonists we must say again—as Ave are never tired of saying as their Day comes round—that never have the hopes and ambitions of simple settlers been more richly fulfilled. Individually they may have missed wealth, but as a body they have succeeded beyond- their dreams. They have lived to see a noble city arise on the shore upon which they gazed from their storm-beaten ships, and the nation they led to triumph flow over the whole land in a resistless tide. They have wrought a work which we fondly believe will last as long as man endures, and which must, at least, remain as long as British people hold the old Maori Land whereto they came. They have rebuilt in the new land the ties they broke with sad hearts when the providential impulse they obeyed drove them over sea; for they have seen their children and their .children's children grow to, manhood and to womanhood, and have bound themselves to one another with the most sacred of human bonds. Youth is a gift that few value aright until it has passed from them, but even youth can have in it no such loyal pride as that which must possess those old pioneers who can look back, to 'the landing from the historic ships. Not only have they seen the colony grow, but they made it grow. With the honest labour of their hands, with the earnest devices of their brains, with their dauntless hearts and their dogged patience they turned this fair land of ours from wilderness to one of the gardens of the world. Others followed, of course, as some had preceded, but the Old Colonists whose Day we celebrate were the leaders of the settlers who came to make a New Britain under the Southern Cross. They came from crowded Britain to a land open to those who set independence above comfort and who dared to offer their own lives as a sacrifice to the welfare of future generations. How severe the test of such pioneering is we can dimly judge from the character always borne by the pioneers and from the length of days which so , many of them have attained in spite of their early hardships! We can judge.of them even better if we look around at the great free colony ' planted by them in Auckland and by their kinsmen in the South. Nor is the least testimonial to be found in the display made by our Auckland workmen on Labour Day. Employers and employed may differ upon many things, may say hard things of one another, may not always act towards one another as either side should act. But when all is said and done, when they have set aside the things upon which they . differ to speak of the things upon which they agree, it can be boasted that they are united in loyalty to New Zealand. And when we use New Zealand in this connection we do not mean the mere geographical . term, for that which was Maori yes- . terday and is British to-day and unless we make ourselves strong to fight for it—may be something else to-morrow we mean that nation of the British peoples which the men . and women of the Duchess Of Argyle and Jane Gifford founded on the' shores of Waitemata. In this New Zealand of ours men differ upon the • method of seeking, but not upon . what they seek. For do we not all seek to have a, land in which the • humblest shall have a life worth liv- [ ing and in which misery and degra- ' dation shall be unknown, to have a land. in which every chile 1 shall be ! able to grow to honest manhood and 1 in which the weak shall be protected from all cruelty and all wrong Nor are there any worthy to be called New Zealander who do not rejoice in every advance made by the workmen of the community and who are not determined, at whatever hazard, to admit no alien labour to reduce our standards and to warp our ideals. In other words, the pioneers of ; this country, the Old Colonists of to-day, brought with them over the oceans i a national faith which they instilled

into this community—a faith in the British race, at confidence '-.;'■ in its future and a determination that in these far lands a British stock should work out together whatever might be its destiny. For sixty and more years that destiny has been working among us, until while the aging pioneers celebrate with failing numbers a landing that must soon be but one of the treasured stories of this colony, our Auckland Labour marches its holiday-keeping army proud, and rightly proud, display. For. there is no honest man in the colony which our pioneers planted who is not loyal to it, who is not convinced with all his heart that it in a good community to live in because of the life it has made possible to him and because of the hope it keeps ever burning in his breast. This is a tribute to the work done by the founders of the colony which passes in meaning any carven stone or lettered brass. For what greater tribute can be paid to those whose life-work is ending than for those who enjoy that work to show .by their love for it that it was done well. _______