MR JAMES MACKAT'S PUBLIC SERVICES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7449, 25 May 1911, Page 4

MR JAMES MACKAT'S PUBLIC SERVICES

(To tho Editor “N.Z. Times.”) Sir, —I was very much interested in the account you published in this morning’s "Times’' about Mr James Mackay, whoso long life is now flickering to a close at Paeroa. In a few intervals of a busy life I have for some time been collecting data about the earliest explorers of the West Coast, ami ueariy a year ago I wrote Mr Mackay for some information of events on which he is the best available authority, namely those connected with the signing of tli© deed or treaty at Grey, in 186 J, by which he succeeded in extinguishing the native title to the entire West Coast as far as Bruce Bay. It was with great pleasure that I received a lengthy letter. from Mr Mackay. and he undertook to supply m© with more information later if I wore unable to visit him, as he preferred. Subsequently, however, the aged pioneer wrote begging to be excused from writing further on account of his failing health. Your sketch of Mr Mackay’s record is necessarily condensed, and accordingly you will pardon mo for saying that it is quite incomplete. Years before his work on the West Coast Mr Mackay was Warden —a position equivalent to that of Magistrate elsewhere —on the Aorere-Col-Lingwood goldfields. There were many native miners there, and Mr Mackay won the respect of both races by hie splendid administration of the mining laws, then by no means such a settled body of principles as they are now. Most of tho CoUingwood Maoris were acquainted with the West Coast, and they soon migrated there in search of gold. Gold was found in the Buiicr river, about twenty miles from its source, in November, 1859, by Mr John Kochfort, then engaged on survey work, and the Nelson authorities induced Mr Kochfort to withhold information from the public uutil the claims of the natives to the country had been dealt with. Happily Mr Mackay's popularity with tho Maoris enabled him to accomlpish this delicate and difhcult work at Grey a year later. When we recollect that the West Coast was “rushed” soon afterwards, some idea can be formed of Mr Mackay’s inestimable, public services. The terrible massacre at Wairau in 1b43 was duo entirely to tho fact that the Wairau Valley was occupied before the claims of the natives had been extinguished. It is due to the aged pioneer, who is now living in ill-requited circumstances, to point out that his timely settlement with the natives at Grey made a repetition, of that hapless incident impossible. As an explorer Mr Mackay does not, of counso rank with the late Mr Brunner, whose magnificent feats on the West Coast are but too little appreciated, even by those for whom ho prepared tho way to prosperity. But this country owes Mr Mackay much indeed, and it is impossible to repress a feeling of regret that a man who has don© so much for us should not be favoured in old age with more of the good things of life. I may ary that, thanks to tb-e kind offices of the late Mr Seddon, Mr Mackay has a pension of £75 per year. It is thus due to the memory of Mr Seddon to say that he has spared New Zealand the humiliation of seeing one ot her most worthy colonists much less happily circumstanced than he is.—l am, etc., P. J. O’REGAN. May 22ad.