HOBSON'S CHOICE.

Observer, Volume 4, Issue 98, 29 July 1882, Page 307

HOBSON'S CHOICE.

Time, which lays its destroying hand on everything mundane has not spared the tomb of the late Governor Hobson, any more 'than his surviving relatives have spared their cash to checkmate Time's ravages. Hobson was a captain in the Royal Navy, who took office in 1810 as Consul, was appointed Lieut. -Governor under Sir George Gipps while New Zealand remained a dependancy of New South Wales, and in May 1811 was appointed Governor of the Colony. ' He died at his post in September 1842, and he had such an affection for New Zealand that he left his remains here against the resurrection. In fact, he did, as a whole, what Governor Bowen — in the exuberant verbosity of post-prandial eloquence — was wont to declare over and over again he would do in j^ar-ticul-atum in each and all of the Australasian cities. Seeing that there would be hardly enough of him to go round, Governor Bowen has probably resolved, like a sensible man,, to live at home and draw his pension to a green old age, ancl then to be gathered to the tombs of his fathers.

. . -fy But this is digression. When Governor Hobson died the public decreed him a first-class funeral and a monumental tomb. To his sorrowing relatives the defunct governor had bequeathed valuable properties iv the most central parts of the city, now estimated to be worth £20,000, property out of- which these absentee legatees have continued to draw rents even unto this day, and to spend in England. Some of the venerable shanties in Chapel-street and its immediate neighbourhood are the sources from which they draw their handsome incomes. Ifc is these wealthy people who have callously allowed the tomb of their near relative ancl benefactor to fall mto ruins, and in default of whoso gratitude and affectionate remembrance the already overburdened taxpayers of fche Colony are now called upon to stump up ! —->*— — . —

4 There is another side to this picture. Governor Hobson died peacefully in his bed, Let us add in justice to his memory that he was a man who would have died with equal fortitude on the deck of his own ship at his country's call. But away on the hillsides and in the valleys of the Waikato are scattered the bones of hundreds of gallant soldiers, seamen and volunteers who shed their life blood in upholding the honour of their country, defending h elpless settlers from massacre and ruin, and wresting millions of acres of land from the Maori owners, which lands are now clotted over with farms and homesteads. The graves of these men are overgrown with noxious weeds, the rude memorials erected by their comrades have fallen into decay and ruin, some of them have suffered tho" barbarous desecration of being burnt for firewood, the very marks which identified the graves have been obliterated, and cattle and pigs roam at will alike over the last resting-places of the scions of noble English families and humble, but not less gallant privates.

To the everlasting disgrace of the Government and the settlers, nothing beyond the merest pottering has been done fo restore these graves or to keep them in decent order. With t^ie single exception of one gentleman afc Paterangi, whose conduct forms a gratifying contrast to the selfish callousness of his fellow settlers, the cemeteries and their enclosures have been left to rot. It may be set down as mere sentiment, but we have a feeling that a want of respect for the dead — and especially for those who died in their country's cause, — and a lack of appreciation of historic landmarks, nre among the distinguishing traits of a contemptible and degraded people, a people cf selfish and narrow views and aims, and of ignoble asnirations. The greatest and bravest nations in- all times carried veneration for their dead, as shown in the artistic adornment of their tombs and burial places, to the heiglit of a national virtue. The promise that his name and fame would be held in honour, his deeds recounted in song and story, and his memory perpetuated by a public memorial, roused a spirit of emulation in the statesman or warrior of classic times.

— .©- . — Some years ago Sir George Grey placed on the Estimates a sum of £300 for the restoration of the Waikato cemeteries, and the vote was passed. The money was never spent on the object for which it was intended. ,It got into the hands of a clique in Waikato — some of the mushroom settlers who came along after all' danger was over, and bought np the aceldamas ; and these grasping wretches, by that hanky-panky in which they are so well versed, misapplied the money, spent it on roads through their own properties, and filched from the dead the respect due to their graves. They would have rooted up the bones and turned them into filthy lucre had they dared. While the government is in a generous mood, and is undertaking responsibilities, which properly devolve on rich absentee relatives, it might have a thought for the graves of the men who fell in the Waikato war.