THIS WEEK'S ANNIVERSARY

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 83, 13 August 1929, Page 4

THIS WEEK'S ANNIVERSARY

) FLAG HOISTED AT AKAROA. | NO BRITISH FRENCH RACE. ] On August 11th, IS4O, the British flag was hoisted at Akaroa by Captain Stanley, R.N., and British authority was exercised for the first time in the South Island by the holding ot a Court. The French lirgate. L'Aube arrived at Akaroa on the 13th, and the vessel Oounte de Bans on the IGth, with 57 immigrants, in ortftet to establish a French colony. "It has been one of New Zealand's most cherished traditions", says Mr T. Lindsay Buick in his book "The French at Akaroa", "that in the month of August, ikStO, 'the British sloop-ttf-war Britomart raced the French frigate L'Aube to Akaroa, beat her, and proclaimed .Tfritiish jsoverdigditw over the South Island l , and so saved that portion of New Zealand to the Empire." Even more romantic is the legend of the events leading to the "race". A ROMANTIC LEGEND. . We. hear of the ball held —sometimes, on board L'Aube ; sometimes at Government House,, sometimes at, Auckland, at the Bay of. -Jslanlclls;—.where 1 ' 1 ; Apity j*);efc! love to eyes that spake, again", and when ai French officer betrayed to aii English lady the secret of the ship's mission; how that informatioki was quickly conveyed to the IJiovejrnor; how the Bintomart was sent off in the dead of night j how, in the morning, when Captain Lavand realised! she had! gone, he set off in hot pursuit, and was just beaten in the race by a few; hours. According to Mr Buick the whole a, myth. There was nothing secret in the departure of the Britomart. She left the Bay in broad daylight, and L'Aube did not follow for a fortnight.

SeeonlcHy, Oaptlain Stanley, \if the Buitomart, held no commission" authorising him to proclaim sovereignty, nor can any authentic account be discovered of his having read any such proclamation. Finally, there was. no ! need for any demonstration of the [kind. On May 21st, 1840, Governor Hobson asserted sovereign rights over the whole of New Zealand!, while the proclamation Jregardilug the South, Island especially was read by Major Bin-bury at Cloudy Bay on June. 17th 1840. ' A HAPPY CIRCUMSTANCE "I have come out of this search," says Mr Buick, "with the conviction that France showed her lack of colonising ability at Akaroa as plainly as in other parts of the world.. Her settlement there could never have succeeded, founded as it was upon a purely speculative and State-aided basis. Still, had it been ..projected earlier, it might have given France a footing on the South Island! which wonld have been even the source of complication si and might ultimately 'have led to war, Tt was, therefore, for both nations a happy circumstance which rave the sovereignty of the whole of New &e«lamd to Great Britain. svn*'th» r s* fo ad"i?t this -now would, T tMnk. be t-V Tv«nch. <TVi,r, settlors most, in + li a end, been left to shift f or tbemselves, or would have been repatriated bv the State, afifl it was fortunate <V>r thorn that they wero =o R onn surrounded bv a p-rent British community into which fW coidrl peacefully nn<l imperceptibly b« absorbed." Mr Bnick has a poor impression of the n-omoters of the Nanto-Bon-dela'se under whose auspices the Akaroa settlement was projected.. "They were' , he isavs, "speculators of a rather mean'type, *ho, when things were coiner we.ll, were prepared to share the spoils, but at the first sign of reverse were ready to scuttle and run."