NEW ZEALAND HISTORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19676, 30 June 1927, Page 11

NEW ZEALAND HISTORY.

SPIRIT OF THE PIONEERS. COURAGE AND SELF-RELIANCE. ABSORPTION OF MAORI RACE. The tvpe nf men who founded New Zealand and the kind of foundation they laid formed tlip subject of an address by Mr. ,T. W. Shaw at the Grey Lynn Library last evening. The lecturer claimed the history of New Zealand was the history of the reunion of two branches of the Caucasian race separated in Asia thousands of years ago. The lecture was one of a winter course, and was presided over by Mr. W. H. Murray, a member of • the Auckland City Council. Mr. Shaw traced the beginnings of the white Caucasian race thousands of years ago, with its characteristic instinct for migration. A thousand years ago or more the first Polynesians reached our shores, pushed out from the Asian continent. Would anything unite again the scattered fragments of the Caucasian race '! The history of New Zealand was the record of the reunion of these fragments. The British became a great navigating people, and events happened to bring together again the Caucasians who went East, and those who had gone West. Tasman's Historic Voyage. Tasman set out on his historic voyage in his Dutch-built, heavy and squat vesj sels iri 1642, and it was through liirn that two severed elements of the Caucasian people again came into contact. In December of that year Tasman fust sighted the snow-capped peaks of the Southern Alps, behind Hokitika, and went on to anchor in Golden Bay. Ho failed to reach an understanding with the Maoris, who killed four of his men, and so he sailed away northward, naming Cape Maria van Diemen before he left New Zealand for ever. There were some indications that Spaniards had visited this land between the time of Tasman and of Cook, but that was not definitely known. In his visit to New Zealand in 1769 Cook anticipated the visit of the French navigator de Surville by only a few days. De Surville foolishly carried away a Maori chief as a punishment for some theft, and later French navigators had to suffer for this. .Marion de Fresne, on whom native vengeance fell at the Bay of Islands, left buried in a spot he carefully indicated a bottle containing the formal annexation of this country to France, but this had never been recovered. Seals, flax and kauri helped to spread the early fame of New Zealand a century and more ago. In their eagerness to acquire guns the Maoris so devoted themselves to the growing of flax that for a time they were seriously threatened with starvation. The lecturer read detailed accounts of cannibal feasts that took place on the site of Auckland not 100 years ago. Beginnings of Settlement. A very great influx of migrants to New Zealand, and particularly Russell, occurred about that time, and it was. on record that 75 different whaling vessels visited Russell in 1839. The first organised permanent settlement of the country began in that year, and from that time there had been a steady stream of population to the country. There never was so quick a development in self-government, but that was not to be wondered at when the physique and calibre of these settlers was taken into consideration. Nobody who was not bold and enterprising and self-reliant would have come to thi.-> ..'ountry in those days. They lived their lives ot service, and the children were reaping the benefit now. The lecturer said lie supposed that in the future there would be a combination of the English and Maori races, and while the united type would gain many of its best qualities from the whites, there would also be elements of great value and strength coming from the Maoris. There was no limit to what New Zealand might become. The only danger he foresaw was that, in selfish blindness, we might check the steady, persistent ijiflux of more and more of the best white blood from the Old Land. We needed more and more of the stock that wrested the conn try from the wilderness, and laid its foundations in hardship, in industry, and in sacrifice.

Mr. SI la w was accorded a hearty vote of thanks.