USES OF ADVERSITY

Taranaki Daily News, 7 December 1929, Page 31 (Supplement)

USES OF ADVERSITY

NELSON IN THE MAKING

AFTER NINETY YEARS.

STORY OF EARLY SETTLEMENT.

(S. Saunders.—Spectial to News.)

Doubtless many of those among _ Sir George Grey’s “unborn millions” destined to find an abiding place on the sunny shores of Tasman Bay will rejoice that in the remote past Captain William Hobson R. N.—“Lieutenant-Governor of New Zealand under Sir George Gipps, Governor of New South Wales, from January 1840 to May 1841, and Governor of New Zealand from May, 1841, until his death in September, 1842” —set his face resolutely against the promoters of the city and province of Nelson wandering further south in search of a more spacious field for the development of their activities. Had it been other-wise Nelson might have been by this time a rich agricultural and pastoral privince, with a spired cathedral, the longest railway tunnel in the Dominion, five Labour members in Parliament, and a penchant for political fads. The New Zealand Company had been established in 1839 and Port Nicholson,plow Wellington, was the first fruits of its colonising zeal. The purpose of the company was to form several settlements, one principal settlement to bo selected “so as to become the commercial capital of the country, ’ and such other settlements as might from time to time be deemed expedient. Colonel William Wakefield was in charge of the first expedition and established such encouraging prospects that a second expedition was speedily dispatched, under the direction of the Colonel s brother, Captain Arthur Wakefield, who, having joined the navy at the tender age of ten, was still a young man with much active service to his credit when no laid down the command of a team frigate in the piping days of peace to accept service with the New Zealand Company and to fill the role of a very picturesque figure in the brief career of that ill-fated undertaking. Perhaps the most appealing of the eulogies accorded him is a fragment saved from some verses written by his friend Alfred Domett, the poet premier, on the occasion of the misnamed “Wairau Massacre,” of which he was a victim: —

But there was a Scotch cap, and an old shooting jacket, And tho form they enveloped was ever reversed; And authority needing no gold lace to back it Was felt and acknowledged where’er it appeared.

In the old wooden Cathedral church in Nelson, which is now being absorbed, as it were, by .an imposing stone structure, i simple brass plate, with but few words, tells of the service and the sacrifice of dio man.

TWO OBSTINATE STALWARTS.

The perplexities which beset Colonel Wakefield and Captain Wakefield concerning the site of Nelson were told at length by the late Mr. Lowther Broad in the Jubilee history of the province thirty-eight years ago, and from this source some fragments may bo taken. Nothing definite, we are told, had been settled before the pioneer expedition sailed from England as to the future settlement of Nelson. The selection of a name appears to have been the only labour undertaken by the authorities in London. A rather vague description of some excellent country suitable for settlement on the East Coast of the South Island had been supplied by Colonel Wakefield to the company, and there seems to have been a general impression in the minds of the pioneers that they were bound for some place in the neighbourhood of Banks’ Peninsula. The final decision, however, was left to the company’s agents after consultation with the “local Government,” whose special knowledge was expected to be of great value in determining so important a point. But the -Company had counted without its host. Colonel Wakefield himself hankered after the fertile lands at the back of Port Cooper (Lyttelton), which, by their proximity to the first settlement would have accorded with all the plans and purposes of the Company admirably. But the “local Government” in the person of the Governor, Captain William Hobson, would not consider any such proposition. Let the expedition go on to Auckland, where lands well adapted to the needs of the coming settlers could be obtained, His Excellency urged. Auckland Avas to be the capital of the Colony. The prosperity of Auckland was therefore the first qestion. Let the emigrants go there, and help to make it what tho Governor wished it to be —the commercial capital as well as the seat of Government. For three Aveeks or so a heated discussion Avent on, the Governor being obstinate and the Colonel pertinacious. The Colonel rvould not send the ships to Auckland, and the Governor would not let them go anywhere near Banks Peninsula. And thus Nelson retained its birthright and its destiny. It became neither a great agriculture and pastoral centre nor a busy commercial depot. The Wakefield brothers, Captain Wakefield in particular, threw unbounded energy into the development of the second province, and by their very zeal attracted a class of settlers wlro in due course lent lustre to the whole colony. Mr. LoAvther Broad may be left.to tell the remaining part of the story of the search for Nelson in his own Avords. “Time was slipping by, the intending settlers might be expected in a feAV weeks, and nothing had been done to select and survey the lands they had paid for and of Avhich they expected possession on arrival,” he Avrites. “Under these circumstances there was nothing for it but to look for another site, somewhere near to Wellington; and Nelson avos literally ‘Hobson’s Choice.’ The company was in the awkAvard position of having assured all those who had bought land that tho central parts of Ncav Zealand would bo the field of the company’s operations. Had the second expedition been sent up to Auckland the company would have been exposed to the severe and deserved reproaches of the deluded purchasers. The Governor cared for none of these things. Auckland had been selected as the seat of Government, and he was determined to compel by all means in his poAver the migration to Auckland or its neighbour of tho Company’s emigrants, and indeed of anyone else he could induce to go there. It Avas no use Availing any longer; nothing would induce His Excellency to let the Expedition go to Port Cooper or Banks Peninsula, and so one fine morning, Colonel Wakefield came on board the Whitby and said to his brother, Wou cannot go to Port Cooper,

the Governor won’t sanction it. He says he has orders to make a Church Settlement there; but I’ll give you a pilot and an interpreter, and you can take the ships and go and see the chief at Kapiti. I have heard there is some good land about Blind Bay, and. you had better go and find it.”

Captain Wakefield accepted his brother's advice, and, after a satisfactory interview with.the Chief at Kapiti, made his way to Blind Bay, the first boat to go ashore carrying Captain Wakefield, Mr. Stephens and Mr. Tuckett. Neither Captain Wakefield nor*Mr. Tuckett, the surveyor of the party, was satisfied by the appearance or -the lay of the land in vie av, but a day or two later one of the boat crews sighted the boulder bank, a curious shingle deposit running parallel with, the shore, and, following its course, found the narroAV passage which for many years served as the only entrance to the haven beyond. This discovery finally settled the site of Nelson, and so sealed the destiny of the province. That Sir George Gray was entitled to look forward to the advent of those "unborn millions” that formed the centre piece in his memorable election- campaign of 1876 Ave all must admit. His . career before that Avas unique in Imperial expansion. It was his lot make good where other administrators had failed. Appointed Governor of Houth Australia in 1841, when only twenty-nine" years of age, he was called to New Zealand in 1845 to fill a similar position here and to repair the blunders of his predecessors in office. He retired in 1853, after seeing the main points of.his system of responsible government established, but Avas recalled in 1861 to give invaluable assistance in bringing about, during the succeeding six or seven years, the cordial relations between the Maori and European peoples which have bound them together as one nation. Sir George visited Nelson first in March, 1846, only two or three months after his first appointment, and the local paper, then claiming to be tho pioneer of journalism in the colony, recorded that his energy had won the confidence, of the people and his urban-ity-their heart. Ho visited the “baby city” again a year later, and both the newspaper and the settlers, as the chronicler records, declaring him “entitled to the warmest support.” On this occasion ho was able to announce that ho had completed the purchase of the Wairau lands from the Maoris by a payment of £3boo, and that the survey of the country had been recommenced with a view to it being speedily occupied by European settlers in perfect harmony with the native vendors. During the same visit he re-instated in all their dignity and authority the magistrates who had resigned theii- office under threat of dismissal from Governor Eitzroy “for their conduct in issuing the warrant for the arrest of Rauparaha and Rangihaeta,” much to the satisfaction, Ave are told, of tho people of tho province. At that time Nelson claimed among its citizens such prominent figures in the later life of the country as Sir William Fox, Mr. Alfred Domett and Sir Francis Bell, the father of the late leader of the Legislative Council, and it may not be a mere vain conceit to feel that the presence of such gentlemen, in tho midst of a community remembering the charms of Cliptain Wakefield, did much to prepetuate in Nelson a measure of courtesy, hospitality and integrity that gives “Sleepy Hglloav” a charm that any community might envy. . .