EVENING FUNCTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25802, 24 March 1945, Page 8

EVENING FUNCTION

ADDRESS BY JHE REV. E. C.

WALSH

There was another large attendance at the evening function in the Pioneers’ Hall over which Mr W. R. Brugh presided. Opening the proceedings, the chairman said it was his pleasure to welcome all to the celebration of the ninety-seventh anniversary of the Province of Otago. It was indeed heartening to see such a large audience. It showed that the descendants of the early pioneers were determined to carry on the work so ably founded by their forefathers.

“We still have with us,” he said, “ one survivor who arrived here in the year of our foundation, 1848. I refer to Mrs Ann Fraser, of High street, Timaru. Her age synchronises with the age of the province, and, despite her ninetyseven years, she still takes a deep interest in our proceedings. I trust she will be listening in to-night, and she will know how pleased we all are that she can still do so.” In conclusion, he said that in three short years they would be celebrating their centenary. What the association might do to mark that outstanding epoch had not yet been decided. In the meantime, he would counsel them to bear it in mind.

Mr Walsh's Address *

The principal speaker of the evening was the Rev. E. C. Walsh, who was introduced by the chairman.

Mr Walsh said they were indebted to the many writers who of late years had set their hands to collect and record for preservation the facts of the history that marked the birth and early vicissitudes of the colony. But what of the unrecorded things—the spirit of the pioneers; their emotional response to a new land and unfamiliar things? Whaf of the deeper feelings that sustained their courage and directed their toils and inspired their tenacity through those early years? He would be without a soul who could stand upon the site and soil made sacred by their sacrifices and labours, and not feel the kindling of , that imagination that read more than the recordable things. It had been his privilege to traverse New Zealand shod with a pair of Bill Massey boots, and a roll of grey blankets on his back. He had worked at the joiner’s bench. He had built wheat stacks in Canterbury, and haystacks in the Waikato. He had wielded an axe in the King Country; planted and dug potatoes in Pukekohe Hill; milked cows in the bush-sick country round Rotorua, and docked lambs in the Wairarapa. “Now we gather in this building housing a thousand memories of the first of the many; the city they founded, of which they dreamed, and for which they toiled lies spread about us, the accomplished fact,” he continued. “Call it sentimentalism if you will. I am proud to be a member of that church which laid such foundations; proud to be a citizen where such character is written in the stones of our churches, the public buildings, and the educational institutions—strength and beauty, solidity and gracefulness, suggestive of the very spirit that reared the fabric.”

Standing on the hills about the harbour, he continued, he had tried to reconstruct the scene .when the first white wings spread to catch the harbour winds when the Deborah waited in the bay that carried its name for the coming of Frederick Tuckett, the New Zealand Company’s surveyor, as he fought his way through dense bush to reach Koputai. Two days from Karitane to Port Chalmers! Two years ago he had made the trip from Hayward’s Point to Karitane in 35 minutes. Only a vestige of the glorious bush remained. It was dense to the water’s edge. Wood pigeon, kaw kaw, tui bellbird and parakeet abounded. Now they had roads and amenities, but they had paid a price. Two months ago he had wandered through the bush on Stewart Island. As he looked across to Ruapuke he recalled the name of Wohlers and the work he did on that island among Maori and pakeha, and he had walked the tracks that were familiar to his feet on Stewart Island in his later years. In the midst of the unspoiled beauty of the island he had recalled the scene into which the early ships sailed. How irreparable was the loss of bush and bird life.

“From my present study,” he said, “I look out over the city from St. Clair to Mount Cargill. Immediately below me lies Kensington and South Dunedin. Captain Cargill and the Rev. Thomas Burns personally supervised the draining of South Dunedin, and I will guess it is dry. I shut my eyes and imagine the swamp, flax, rush and toitoi obstructions that made it. easier to travel by dinghy across the harbour than to take the land route to Anderson’s Bay, where the only clearings were a few potato patches surrounded by bush and tended by a few Maoris. I look again, to see in South Dunedin the most closely-settled square mile in the whole of the Dominion. . From my vantage point I swing my gaze north-east to the Valley—lo minutes’ journey by tram—and again try to imagine the flax and swamp that turned back the intrepid minister of the settlement in his first attempt to penetrate the valley.” And finally, he said, what were the impressions the passing years and experiences left? They stood that night in the presence of great shades in the city that 'concealed their richest dust. They honoured their memory and their works followed them. He affirmed, however, that the work was only begun. They travelled easily where the pioneers blazed the trails, but were there no more trails to blaze? They were emerging from the greatest catastrophe in history. The dawn was lighting up the eastern sky, 'and the day called for pioneers—pioneers in every sphere—the spirit of leadership, of citizenship, of 90-operative sacrifice and unremitting toil. If New Zealand was worthy of the prayer, “God Defend New Zealand,” and fulfilled its claim to be “ God’s Own Country,” then their true memorial to the pioneers would be a re-dedication to the faith and principles that inspired them, and intensification of that spirit of application by which they achieved.

Musical items, choral and solo, and supper concluded the evening's entertainment. A dance was held later for the younger rteople.