OTAGO’S PIONEER MISSION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21627, 23 April 1932, Page 4

OTAGO’S PIONEER MISSION

MR RUGBY PRATT’S NARRATIVE

• "The Pioneering Days of Southern Maorlland.” By M. A. Rugby Pratt, President-elect, Methodist Conference, 1832, Connexional Secretary, Methodist Church of N.Z., etc. Illustrated. London; The Epworth Press (6s net).

The recorded history of the early days of colonisation is not so voluminous or complete that any addition to it can be overlooked, especially when, as is the ease with Mr Rugby Pratt’s “ The Pioneering Days of Southern Maoriland,” the additional record concerns our own particular province. Mr Pratt has had full access to the journals of the Rev. James Watkin which relate to his fontyears’ stay at the Waikouaiti whaling station from 1840, “ where daylight broke on the dark Maori race of the South Island of New Zealand.” The publication is timely in view of the recent whaling centenary celebrations in Otago, though the volume is not entirely complimentary to the whalers, who, Mr Pratt says, “ without restraint and without concealment, lapsed to a lower level than the heathen in lev dness and lust.” The Wesleyan authorities had been given by Mr John Jones lavish promise of the consideration he would show their missionary, but all of his undertakings were not fulfilled. The whalers, indeed, were somewhat antagonistic;—

Upon coming to 1 Waikouaiti, Mr Watkin. found himself in conflict with the elementary passions of man at his vilest. The vicious and unclean habits of the white man had been grafted upon and mingled with the original heathenism of the aboriginal inhabitants. Brutality and licentiousness abounded amongst the whalers, by whom abominable vices were openly practised. These men were almost generally living with native women. They looked suspiciously upon the advent of the missionary and bitterly resented his efforts to extirpate this vile traffic in virtue. Some prevented their women . . . from attending school or church, well knowing that if the Christian religion gained an influence over the Native mind, they must cither marry or lose their concubines upon whom some had come Ip r.ely for their own sustenance. Watkins territory extended over a wide stretch of country from Moeraki as far south as Stewart Island, and though he was not a robust man he made numerous hazardous journeys throughout this principality, often in canoes and whaleboats manned by Natives. , His zeal was unflagging, and when he handed over to the Rev. Charles Creed,’ his successor, in June, 1884, “ho left 227 church members whom he had won from heathenism, and more than 20 NatiVe preachers and class leaders in the various Maori villages in Otago and Southland. Ho had baptised 268 persons, including some children, and had married 39 couples. . . .” Solid Foundation Mr Pratt is pardonably anxious to show that, deprived of the service of Watkiu, Otago would have begun its career of colonisation “ tragically deficient in the elements that contribute to national well-being.” When the John Wickliffe and the Philip Laing reached Otakou in 1848 they found, he says, solid moral foundations whereon to build: “From wild and warring elements the pioneer Methodist missionaries had created a community having a corporate life and a Christian conscience. The rich life of the entire region has its roots, not only in Scottish soil, but largely in the work of Watkin and Creed. To tell the story of the province only from tiie establishment of the Free Church Settlement is to exhibit a flower without a root or a statue without a pedestal.” Creed was the first preacher to conduct religious worship on the site of Dunedin. He officiated at the first baptism of a European child in Dunedin, and baptised the first white child born here. Religious Controversy

It is perhaps inevitable, but nevertheless rather regrettable, that the element of religious controversy should figure so prominently in this book. Mr Pratt quotes Watkin as expressing his repugnance to the methods of Bishop Pompallier and his fellow missioners in making presents to the Natives “to ingratiate themselves,” while the Anglicans stigmatised the Wesleyan pioneer missionaries as “ unauthorised intruders.” Selwyn viewed Watkin’s work as “ irregular,” an uncharitable acknowledgment indeed. Mr Pratt says:— It mattered not that it was Watkin who. first unfurled the banner of the Cross in the South Island of New Zealand; that he stood at the centre of a real religious' awakening; that his work not only won outcast pakehas from animalism and vice, but also transformed heathen cruelty into love; lit dusky Maori faces with the light of God, and sent erstwhile cannibals into the valley of the shadow of death with Christian hymns upon their lips and Christian hopes in their hearts. Ho was merely a “ dissenting teacher,” and as such the Bishop could not: recognise his presence in the district as proof that it was “ under Christian instruction.”

He recognises Selwyn, however, as a great worker and a man sincere and enthusiastic, and attributes his intolerance on occasion to .“a simple faith ” in the doctrine of the apostolic succession, which Wesley “ had long before declared to be 1 a fable which no man ever did or ever can prove.” Watkin, when he met Sclwyn, found him to be “ as Catholic as can be expected in a person who believes as he does,” and wrote to a friend: “I think he is a good man as far as his prejudices will allow. I pray God to give him a blessing.” The Wesleyaus apparently have not received the credit that was their due for establishing the first mission in the South Island, and Mr Pratt’s ardent apologia, although it tends to excite an old controversy, is perhaps necessary. He claims for his book that it is a clear, unbiased narrative.

Mr Pratt must have spent considerable time in collecting his data, but there is an unfortunate lack 1 in “ The Pioneering Days of Southern Maoriland ” of adequate references to sources from which information has been drawn, or even of footnote references to authorities Mr Pratt’s acknowledgment to M'Nab and Hockcn ia less than perfunctory—they have “given only a bare outline of the throbbing activities of the former half of the nineteenth century.” M'Nab’s “ Old- Whaling Days ” is, in point of fact, an authoritative history of the south in the pre-colonisation period, and Mr Pratt appears to have drawn on this source, since several passages bear a marked similarity. M'Nab, incidentally, had access to Watkins journals, from which Mr Pratt has taken a great deal of his original material. As a history of the Wesleyan Methodist mission activities “ The Pioneering Days of Southern Maoriland ” is of value, and as a picturesque account of early Otago history it is accurate and interesting. Its contribution in actual historical knowledge in the broad sense is slight. “ The T’ioncgring Days of Southern Maoriland ” is fully illustrated, some of the photographic reproductions being of special interest. J. M.

The March issue of the Round Table is intensely interesting with its account of the forthcoming Ottawa Conference. The Japan and China and Manchuria situation is also dealt with very fully, and much information of value given regarding the recent conflagration. The “no rent ” campaign and the Red Shirt movement in India, the terrorism in Bengal, and how the hand of the Government was forced, is told in the Indian article. The tariff policy of the National Government in Britain is fully dealt with. Obtainable at ali booksellers or by subscription for 22s 6d per annum post free, on application to P.O. Box 877. Wellington.—Advt.