INSPIRATION FROM THE PAST

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23719, 27 July 1940, Page 4 (Supplement)

INSPIRATION FROM THE PAST

Makers and Saviours

By KOTARE

TO' each generation its own special problem. Our fathers whom we have sought to honour'in our centennial year were primarily concerned with making the land, building up stage by stagfe the heritage they dreamed of for their children. Not that time and j again they had not to face the task j of saving from disaster what they j had won. They had their periods of | crisis when everything was again in i the balance. But throughout our j first hundred years the dominant note everywhere was construction, j creation. It is our lot to take the •

stage when everything in our heritage is seriously threatened. The J one call drowning out all others now ! is to prove our worthiness by saving: what we have inherited from the' long and difficult constructive \ labours of our fathers. Later, if we prove worthy, there will be the building up again as the supreme task. To-day all arc summoned into the front line to give according to their power and opportunity to save the rich treasure that has been entrusted to them. The Primal Virtues But while that is our function, and every effort will be needed if we are to perform it satisfactorily for ourselves and for the hurrying generations pressing on our heels, it is profitable axnid our many anxieties to remember the makers, and find some of our inspiration in them. The momentum from the past ineans much in any community, even in one as young as ours. Perhaps because of our very youth the lines upon which the past has developed st.md out more clearly for us. The simpler the pattern the more easily the individual strands can be tracked down. The complexities of the older world have not blurred the outlines here. The simpler virtues, faith, hope, courage, endurance, were so obviously the warp and lvoof that built up the fabric of our distinctive national life in New Zealand. And as they served so well the makers, bo now in our great peril they will serve us who are called on to be the saviours of our national heritage. All sorts of men were needed among the makers. Often they were in conflict with one another, not seeing at the tinle that each in his own way was adding ,an essential element to the great task of; building. Hobson and Maning probably could , not understand each other's point of view. Hobson~was the official, seeing a few all-important issues with amazing clarity and standing resolutely for these. A stiff and rigid man,- as responsibility shaped him from the lively dashing young officer in the' true navy tradition, doomed to unpopularity because of his strict adherence to a plain path of duty, but accepting misjudgment and ill-will for that duty's sake. Rightly we give him pride of place in the Centennial roll of honour; But if all men had been of his type and had held his ideas, the building of New Zealand would have been a far more difficult task; if indeed New Zealand as we know it'could have been built at all Hobson and Maning Maning inevitably fell foul of Hobson. Temperamentally they were at opposite poles. Maning was genial, humorous, daring. He too saw very clearly what lie wanted. He was the man of tlie world who chafed under official restrictions. He wanted an open field ai/d 110 favour. The dashing adventurer thrusting out into the' unknown, always ready to take a risk, concerned more with the job in' hand and the job ahead than with undex--lying principles, was as necessary to the true development of New Zealand as the man of system and order who saw. his narrow circle of duty and courageously confined himself to that. Beneath the differences on the surface, and equally strong and formative in both, were the primitive virtues that have , made us and will preserve us, faith, hope, courage and endurance. Yet another type is. presented to us in Mr. George Cruickshank's pleasant chronicle of the life of Robert Graham. Graham's name is writ large in the earlj' history of Auckland City, Waiwera,/ the Thames, and the Hot Lake District. Graham was a business man of large vision and courageous enterprise. ; arrived here in the Jane Gifford 'in 1842. He was twenty-two years old, vigorous in body and mind, and planning to pick up a fortune in a year or two and to return to Scotland. But New Zealand caught him in its spell. The Testless streak in .him that had brought him to New Zealand sent him to California in the wake of the Forty-Niners. He returned- to New j Zealand and shipped 90 tons of potatoes from his Ellerslie farm for San Francisco. That bold enterprise was typical of the man. So was the reaction when the whole shipment went bad in the tropics. He jettisoned the cargo, steered for Tahiti, loaded up with oranges and ended with a substantial profit. ' Moving Accidents As a member of the Colonial Parliament he attended the session of 1862 called'by Grey to meet in Wellington, though Auckland was still the capital. "This general post," says Mr. Cruickshank. /"necessitated the moving of many dignitaries and officials and of a vast quantity of records and papers to Wellington." The White Swan ran ashore between Napier and Wellington, All the passengers were saved, but all the records were lost. Graham with two others set out overland for Wellington. They covered 106 miles over hill and swamp, through bush and river, in .country mostly trackless, in 50 hours. A relief ship was at once sent and rescued the sore bested legislators. But the fates had still more in store for Graham. After the session, he sailed for Onehunga by way of Nelson. The ship, the Lord Worsley, ran ashore on the • Taranaki coast not far from Opunake. Everybody landed safely, but they found a considerable section of the local natives hostile and concerned chiefly to loot the wreck for firearms and munitions. Graham knew Maori and learned that a massacre was being planned. He entered the Maori meeting, and so impressed the natives by his courage and eloquence that crew and passengers were given a safe-conduct. He also by his strategy brought safely to -New Plymouth two boxes of gold that had been part of tiie ship's cargo. In both shipwrecks lie had proved himself a man of swift initiative, bold and wise. " As Superintendent of Auckland he built the Supreme Court, the old Shortlarfd Street Post Office, and the Customs House. Tt was'during his term of office that the Orpheus was wrecked on Manukau Bar. In his private concerns he ranged wide and tar, and though in the end he had not much to show of personal profit, he had blazed many a .trail for others. An eager, questing spirit, with unlimited 1 confidence in himself and the country, I he was for CTer opening up new paths as a pioneer man of business. In him, as in Hobson and Maning, the foundation .of everything Jay in those four simple and potent virtues, faith, hope, corn-age and. endurance.