THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1933 SEVENTY YEARS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21647, 13 November 1933, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1933 SEVENTY YEARS

Tt was on Friday. November 13, 1863, the New Zealand Herald first saw the light. As a birthday, the date must have seemed to the superstitious an unpromising one, fraught with portent of a brief and unhappy career. There were in circumstances, too, elements showing little favour to new enterprises, particularly an enterprise of this kind. Auckland, then but a city of twelve thousand inhabitants, had already become accustomed to two daily newspapers, and the difficulties of pioneering days had not been outgrown. Up to that time there was no settled municipal government; much in local conditions was still primitive ; prosperity was doubtfully in the making. To the manifest disadvantages of an undefined corporate life and unsettled business prospects was added the drawback of perilous times, especially discouraging to commercial adventure. The outbreak of the Maori war in Taranaki three years before had been recently followed by a related disaffection of tribes in the Waikato, and their open revolt against British rule threatened the safety of the young city. Its landward approaches had to be guarded by a semicircle of blockhouses ; the harbour front was a line of defences. Every available man was enrolled for military service. Some were on vigil day and night, and the rest under notice of a possibly sudden call to arms. An atmosphere of uncertainty and stress prevailed. To all seeming, the outward signs of success for another journalistic venture were unpropitious. Yet the founder of the Herald, looking deeper than the surface, saw a need to be met. The very things that entailed menace were held by him, as by many others beset by anxiety, to be an opportunity and call for courage. Above all, he and they realised the urgency, in the interests of the whole colony, of a more vigorous advocacy of bold handling of the crisis. Government administration lacked the wisdom of firmness and was prone to easy courses. So, undeterred by all risks, the Herald stepped into the breach, announcing at once principles so clear-cut and a faith in the future so stalwart that it influentially rallied and voiced a wholesome public opinion. That this was the outcome of the insight and determination it embodied says as much for the real spirit of the times thus sensed by its founder as it does for his patriot sagacity. Looking back across the seventy years that make the colonial crisis so remote, the heirs of this influence —a people vastly multiplied in city and province and Dominion—cannot be other than thankful for the work done amid difficulties.

Winning thus speedily an acknowledged journalistic leadership, the Herald has kept its place. Many a newspaper started here in earlier days fared iH One of its two contemporaries of 1863 ceased publication three years later. The other (the Southern Cross) joined forces with it in 1877. On the day of that amalgamation the Herald expressed anew its determination to preserve the strength of independence manifested in its origin. "No influence can be brought to bea/ on us from outside," the announcement plainly said; "we are as free to form our own conclusions and to express our own thoughts as any newspaper can possibly be. We shall be ever mindful that our duty is to the people and not to any man or set of men." This emphatic reiteration of independence and a sense of impartial duty to the whole community is significant of the ideal constantly cherished through succeeding years. A policy of close identification with the general life of the city and province has been maintained, and in keeping with the wide outlook signalised in the title the founder chose for his journal the good of the whole Dominion, as an outpost of a worldwide British realm increasingly pledged to international service, has had continual thought. The Herald has studiously i fostered the industrial and commcrcial progress it has shared. To it both town and country have been important. Projects of promise in the development of the north, particularly in the prosperous settlement of unoccupied and sparsely occupied lands, have been consistently pressed upon public attention. City improvement- and the provision of thoroughly modern facilities in outlying areas have alike been encouraged. The, cause of the small rural freeholder has been championed equally with that of (he promoter of secondary industry, in keen appreciation of (lie banal value of nsricuM'.ure as well as the need to found other pursuits of economic suitability. Side by side with this care for material stability and progress has been an endeavour to fulfil the primary function of a newspaper. News from everywhere has been collected and presented, at a cost and by a perfection of organisation unrealisable outside the journalist's profession. Education, entertainment, recreation, art, literature, religion, have all been served with what ability could be brought to bear. And in every arising of grave issues the. paramount wish has been to give safe and sure guidance, no wo id being ever lightly written nor any narrow partisanship consciously aided.

No human endeavour or achievement is above criticism, and iaeals themselves prove their worth by beckoning rather than attainment. The truth of this cannot be forgotten as the seventieth milestone is reached and retrospect merges into contemplation ot Iho, present and musing on the future. Tasks abound.; the latest stretch of the path has been arduous ; difficulties beset in individual and corporate life. Yet, as in turning again to the troublous days that gave the Herald birth has been found an example of courage in adversity, so the outlook can be envisaged now with confidence. The language of depression is unbecoming, rebuked by memory of pioneer daring and made inappropriate by the evident approach of better times. Gratefully the Herald accepts the heritage of trust bequeathed bv the years, holding as unswervingly their faith in the future of this city, this country, and the universal British Commonwealth. The special inset published with today's issue is a virtual deed of trust, for it tells in article and picture the story of those years—but not in mere memorial, rather in token of accumulated hope. In the assurance that the record will inspire, everywhere it is read, new resolves worthy of the. memorable past, the Herald sets out to-day on the next stretch of the fascinating road of enterprise and duty which goes ever on.