MEETING OF CITY COUNCIL.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4263, 24 January 1901, Page 3

MEETING OF CITY COUNCIL.

RESOLUTION OF SORROW. CABLEGRAM TO HOME GOVERNMENT. A special mooting of the Wellington City Council was hold yesterday afteinoon, lion (.hero were present;—Tho .Mayor CMr J. G. W. Ailken), Councillor; Anderson, Murdoch, Tolhurst, Townsend, Evans, Winder Smith and Rather. The Mayor said he did not know that he needed to apologise for calling the Conneil together Unit afternoon. Ho did not well know what else he could have done. There were to have, been two committee rneetimr; that dav, and also a. meeting of the. Council on the following evening. It would lie absolutely wrong in the circumstance, in which they were placed i.hal those meetings .should he held. He had thought it. advisalde that I }<• Council should meet as '•arl.v as possible to pa-.; a special resolution in view of Ihe Queen’s death, and lie had also thought that that afternoon would .-nit, ».i well as any other time for holding the meeting. He received a telegram from lie- Acting-Premier in the forenoon announcing the death of her Majesty the Queen, and he thereupon caused notices to he put in the •windows at the newspaper offices calling upon citizens to elo.-e their places of business as a. marl: of rcsiiret; and esteem. That rail, lie win; 'glad to say. liad been very universally obeyed. Ho did not lliink any place of hii-incss that con.,hi he closed was not closed. Councillors would not expect him lo say much, hut he would say licit flic Queen was exceedingly beloved, and that not only by thorn of her own race, hut also by (he unlive races over whom she reigned. Here in New Zealand they had a. strikin'? example of that in the fact that the Maori; were ns much attached to the Mother Queen, as they called her. as wore any of her subjects in any part of her realm. _ The .same thing was to be found in India. In ■fact, in every country over which she reigned, the respect and esteem for her was very great, by all the native races as well as by subjects of Anglo-Saxon origin. That, ho thought, showed what a very superior woman -Iho Queen was. She was loved not merely as a Queen hut as a- woman. She lived a very long life. She was ciglit.v-two years of ape when she died. Although she had lived all that time, and in the glare of publicity—'with Hie full sunshine of publicity upon her—yet never in one instance had. .there ever been a suspicion that her life was nnt of the highest and the purest. Never once had there been a -whisper that her Majesty the Queen did not be- ' have as a woman should behave. Ho 1 thought that was really the highest tri- , huto that could he given to anyone. If ‘ was easy enough for some of them who ! dull not live before the public gaze—who lived comparatively quiet and corap.nra- I lively private lives—it was easy enough for t'liom, with their smaller temptations and fewer opportunities of doing things (hat were wrong, to live comparatively pure lives. Rut with a woman placed in her -Majesty’.-; position, surrounded hy all kinds of temptations of this, that and the oilier kind, to do what better judgment told should not 'he dune, it was, •he thought, surprising that never in one instance did her Majesty by word ty cleod do anything for which she or anyone else need blush. He attributed f fiat very largely to the fact that the Queen was a woman of a. deeply religious turn of mind, and that she was- a. sincere Christian. Ho could not account tor anyone living such a pure and noble life as the Queen did on any other’ lines than Hud. It- was now their fate to . mourn the loss of her Majesty, and they wore c died upon to say in formal worrit how much that meant lo them as a colony, to them a; a city, and to them a.- individuals. It meant to him, at all events, a very great deal, because ho had always had the very highest esteem for j her Majesty. He had always looked upon her as the most excellent, of the , earth.. In conclusion. Mr Aitken said he thought they should unite their voices with the other voices of the nation, of the Empire, in expressing concern at the very great loss that, the Empire had sulTereii in the death of her Majesty the Queen. There was no Sovereign that had ever sat on the British throne, nor, so far as,.he knew, on any throne in the ■world, that had over had tho esteem that this Queen had had, and none had ever deserved it as she had deserved it. lie proposed, “That this Council places on record its heartfelt sorrow at tho death of her Most Gracious Majesty the. Queen, and its deep sense of the great, 1 loss .sustained by the millions of people , over whom she ruled.”

Councillor Smith, in seconding I he motion, .said ho thought they hail cause to monru the loss of ono who had been so good throughout tho whole of her life, which had been a very long ono., Tho Queen commenced her official life before ho was horn, and ho was now sixty-ono years of ago. Most persons' had their trials and troubles, and the Queen had hers. His on© regret was that sho had not been spared to see peace proclaimed throughout the length and breadth of her dominions. But another Power willed that sho should go, and they mourned the loss of ono whom they respected more than any other person. They hoped that whoever might bo placed in power similar to hers would have some of her good qualities, so as to bring thorn through the trying ordeal in which they would bo placed with credit to themselves and the good of tho people. Councillor Anderson saitl he. had tho honour of seeing her Majesty when he was a boy, and when sho was only a girl herself. He lived as a subject under "William IV., and ho had seen the Queen as mother, as Queen, as Empress, and as widow. And ho believed that her Majesty was the greatest of living monarch* on this earth. Ho thought 1 er loss to all. of them was irreparable. IVhen he thought oj what ho had seen of her Majesty and of tho privileges which ho had enjoyed under her rule, he was proud of being a. Briton. Everyone who had lived under so beneficent a, sovereign had cause to mourn her death and must fee! tho groat less which ho and his follow-subjects had suffered. Tie had seen her Majesty several times, and ho felt her loss very keenly. Councillor Evans said ho thought' the Mayor had don© the right thing in calling tho Council together, and m moving the resolution which ho had* snb mittod! to thorn. There could be no doubt, ho thought, that the magnificent

personality of her Majesty the Queen had been' the most important factor in the building of the Empire ;-f wince they were so proud. He supposed they might justly describe it as. at all events, the’ largest' Empire the world had ever seen. The Empire comprised people of very different nationalities, ami_ of varyi hm degrees of culture and civilisation, ■ and he thought the Mayor was qu ; to > right '.•■■hell lie said that it was not so • much by the power of diplomacy or by the ruder power of physical force teat tliis great Empire had been brought and held Together, but rather by the personality of the Queen and by tho devotion of her subjects to her Majesuy. It was very suggestive, iio thought, us the coining time. Tho enthronement of a woman on trio throne of an Empire such as this was an indication of the coming time when the qualities that had been most associated with the wonaii, the qualities of .simpleness, tenderness and mercy, as well as of justice, should he the ruling powers all over the earth. It had not been given to them to see much or to follow very much of the inner life of her Majesty. They knew, however, what an important factor she had been in international affairs. Xl.ey -know that on more than one occasion she had averted bloodshed and disaster both to their own people and to other European peoples. As a grrai author had said, tho subjects of Empire had not known so out they would in time know tho tremendous force which tho Queen had wielded on the side of peace, the side of humanity, 1 end the side of mercy. Allusion had already been made to the hearing of her j -Majesty with regard to her own private life. He thought there ■-•ould be no doubt whatever, when one compared ; the history of the English court during , the last sixty years with tho history , of the court in the preceding reigns, that, there had been an almost infinite difference in regard to tho general tenor of the court. There was no doubt that the character of the head of an important Empire such as tins was must, affect, for good or ill the _destinies of all the peoples associated in that Bmpiic; and, as the Mayor had rightly seed, no one could point a finger to her Majesty as one who had in any way conducted herself to the detriment cither of her character or the dxsgrav? of tho highest and noblest under her sceptre. The secret. it seemed to him, of all tho affection that had been expressed in the past and that would he expressed (luring those days, lay in Hus fact, that the Queen was a woman to tho very core—that was to say, that at her heart of hearts there was a chastity which tho glare of Empire could nob in any way affect. He very cordially supported tho motion, and he could only pray that the Queen’s successor on tho throne wou,d be worthy of the example that she had given him.

Councillor Murdoch said he had always had tho greatest reverence for tho Queen. His father was a soldier, and fiom the way in which he talked about her Majesty, he (Councillor Murdoch) had alwiys had a. feeling, that he should like to do .something for her to try and uphold her Empire in some way or other. Tho Queen’s life had neen such as to make any man proud to bo unde ■ her rule. Tho only thing he was aoriy about was that her Majesty, though she ■could not have lived many years longer had not lived till the struggle in South Africa was over, till after wo had settled tho war. Ho had a son who had geno to fight her battles there, and another who was ready and willing (o go and do tho samr* if he was required, lie hoped they would be of some service to tho King, whom ho hoped would Jong reign over them. The motion was carried.

On the motion of tho Mayor, seconded by Councillor Smith, authority was given for the despatch of tho following cablegram by tho Town Clerk to the Secretary of State-for the Colonies '‘Council and citizens of Wellington, New Zealand, deeply regret sad news received death of our beloved Sovereign.” It was decided that tho Council Chambers should be draped with black.