A GREAT SERVICE

Taranaki Daily News, 30 January 1930, Page 5

A GREAT SERVICE

WITHOUT COMMEMORATION. GOVERNOR GENERAL SPEAKS. (By S.S.) “In ten years it will be the centenary of the landing of the early settlers. I wonder if by then there will be a suitable memorial to the Wakefields erected in Wellington. A year or two ago there was a movement in that direction, but it seems to have dropped out of mind. I wonder if this celebration of the ninetieth anniversary of the founding of the capital city will revive that movement and if when the centenary comes to be celebrated a fitting memorial to these far-seeing, courageous pioneers will have taken shape. I always feel, looking back upon what William Wakefield and Edward Gibbon Wakefield dared and accomplished in the promotion of British settlement in these outposts of the Empire, it is passing strange that among all the memorials raised to prominent figures in this Dominion none is dedicated to the great men to whom New Zealand owes everything.” If these eloquent, compelling words, spoken by the Governor-General at the annual gathering of the Early Settlers’ Association in Wellington the other day move the people of the Dominion at last to pay some adequate tribute to the memory of Edward Gibbon Wakefield and his brothers, His Excellency will have gone far towards repairing the indifference and neglect which have stood as a reproach to three generations. When Sir Charles Ferguson stated that it was to William and Edward Wakefield New Zealand owed everything, he, of course, was speaking euphoniously. The country, with all it had to offer in the way of soil and climate and opportunity, was here in any case. It would be literally true to say, however, that to the foresight and courage of Edward Gibbon Wakefield and to the understanding and self-sacrifice of his two brothers, William and Arthur, New Zealand and its people are deeply indebted for the opportunities, the freedom, and the security they enjoy today. Yet it is only by a portrait hung here and there, or by an obscure street sign somewhere else'that even their names are kept in remembrance. ' ' IN THE BEGINNING. The public life of the elder Wakefield already has been briefly indicated in this column. Students requiring further information in this respect could not do better than turn to Dr. Harrop’s ‘Amazing Career of Edward Gibbon Wakefield,” which, after all, is not so amazing as its enterprising author would have the public suspect. Mr. William Gisborne, in his “New Zealand Rulers and Statesmen,” draws a picture of the Empire builder which is baoed mainly on what he saw of him, a sick and weary man, when he came to New Zealand in the early fifties, and secured a seat in the colony’s first Parliament. But even Mr. Gisborne is driven, to ad-

mit that he rendered distinguished service to the Empire. “Edward Gibbon Wakefield,” he says, almost grudgingly it would seem, “was practically the founder of the colony, and it is, in a great measure, owing to him that New Zealand did not become a French colony, and possibly the receptacle of French convicts and recidivists.” My old chief and sometime colleague, the Hon. W. Pember Reeves, was an equally incisive critic, but a more discriminating historian. “He saw, and made the commonplace people about him see,” he wrote of . Wakefield, almost precisely at the time Mr. Gisborne was writing, “that colonisation was a national work worthy of system, attention and the best energies of England. The empty territories of th© Empire were no longer to be treated only as gaols for convicts, fields for negro slavery, or even as asylums for the persecuted or refuges for the bankrupt and social failures of the Mother Country, To Wakefield the world ‘colony’ conveyed more than a back-yard into which slovenly Britain could throw human rubbish, careless of its fate so long as it might be out of sight.” In the same strain Mr. Reeves goes on to show that when Wakefield’s conception of colonies came to fruition these outposts did not consist of fortuitous congregations of outcasts seeking to hide themselves from the gaze of a censorious world, but of earnest men and women with high ideals an<J earnest purpose reaching out for conditions in a new w'orld that were denied them in the old. THE CRITICS. Dr. Harrop, writing thirty years after Mr. William Gisborne and the Hon. W. Pember Reeves had committed themselves to definite opinions concerning the Wakefield family, covered the ground more closely, and perhaps more judicial--1 ly, than did either of his predecessors in this interesting period of research. In these circumstances it is fairer to ac- ' cept the exhaustive review and sustained judgment of th© student than it would be to rely upon the passing allusions of the erstwhile politicians. “It is not surprising,” Dr. Harrop quotes from a review in Blackwood’s Magazine of more than thirty year© ago, “that Edward Gibbon Wakefield has been neglected for nearly half a century, for Edward Gibbon Wakefield was a prophet, and prophets are commonly without honour not only in their own but in every other country. Moreover he had, so to say, a practical knowledge of the future. lie knew the means whereby his fancies would be turned into facts, and when he even proved th© clearness of his vision, envious ones wore not wanting to resent his accurate judgment. °But' the old animosities are falling into forgetfulness; th© opposition evoked by Wakefield's sincerity perished long ago.” Dr. Harrop thinks Wakefield made a mistake in entering colonial politics, and doubtless he is right, but th© pioneer was essentially a man of action, and with great issues at stake h© never could play the part of a mere looker on. Had it been otherwise ho might have fared better. “If h© had been

content with writing about the evils of convict colonisation,” the doctor tells us, “he would have provoked less irritation, but part of New Zealand might have become a French penal settlement and a plague spot in the Pacific. It may have been unscrupulous for him to write pamphlets which other ~people signed, but if it was unscrupulous it was also inevitable; if he had not worked anonymously the causes for which he wrote, might have suffered.” All his biographers, and all his would-be biographers, describe Wakefield as a difficult man to work with, but all of them are ready enough to admit that few men of genius are particularly amiable colleagues. A DEBT UNPAID. The tactful suggestion of the Gover-nor-General, that the people of New Zealand should set about acknowledging the debt they and their forefathers owe to Edward Gibbon Wakefield, at least should rekindle the spark of repentance to which His Excellence alluded w r hen addressing the members of the Wellington Early Settlers’ Association at their recent annual gathering. It was hoped at the time of that mild-agitation that the Parliament of the Dominion would take some steps towards repairing the omission of three generations; but when the House of Representatives voted £50 —fifty pounds sterling!—towards this end the whole country, or at any rate that part' of it with a conscience, was shamed into silence. It remains to be seen if Sir Charles Ferguson’s appeal will produce any more creditable result.

While we wait let us ponder over a concluding paragraph in Dr. Harrop’s appeal for the recognition of a great man by his own people. “No serious historian,” the doctor writes, “would now dream of writing an account of the history of the Empire without assigning a prominent place in it to "Wakefield. French, Italian and other foreign writers have agreed with British historians in emphasizing the importance of the change which lie introduced in the spirit of British colonial policy. As the old jealousies and controversies have died out, it has become more and more clear that Wakefield, who shaped his methods for the age in which he lived, raised a building which may stand for all time.”

It was in 1898, at the time Mr.' Gisborne and Mr. Reeves were writing, that Dr. Garnett, in his biography of Wakefield, reminded the colonies of their neglect of their great benefactor. “The Colonial Office,” he wrote, “wars no longer with Edward Gibbon Wakefield. His bust adorns one of its corridors and his spirit in a great degree animates its policy . . . But, while the department of State which he combated had recognised his desert, the colonies which he created have done nothing for his memory, absolutely nothing whatever. It cannot be thought that this will long continue.” As a matter of fact, the conditions Dr. Garnett deplored have continued for thirty-two years after he wrote, and if Sir Charles Ferguson’s appeal fails they may continue for all eternity.