CIVIC JEALOUSY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 19, 23 January 1935, Page 9

CIVIC JEALOUSY

CHIEF DOMINION CITIES. BIRTH OF COLONIAL HISTORY NEW PLYMOUTH. Jan. 19. The reason why Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin revel in opportunities for shy little digs at each other was explained in entertaining fashion by Dr. A. G. Butchers, Wellington, in a lecture to the Teachers’ Summer School at New Plymouth on Friday night. Although the guarded nature of the relations between Auckland and Wellington was now dying down, said Dr. Butchecs, the story went back to the time when New Zealand was first colonised, when the Tory came to Wellington against orders and the Government dispatched Governor Hobson to Auckland.

In Otago a board of Presbyterians set up a colony with the definite intention of not allowing anyone but a trueblooded Presbyterian in the spttlemi nt. The result was, said Dr. Bufehers, that the Anglicans had, if his expression could be pardoned, the devil’s own job to establish a church there. The people, however, had pursued a far-sighted policy in regard to education and in the sale of land for every £1 spent for land £1 had to be paid for religious and educational purposes. The result was that now the endowment supported four professors at; the University. Canterbury was similar to Otago in that it was almost purely a Church of England community. The Wesleyans got in, however, because they were st ill Members of the Anglican Church and they were no sooner there than they built a chapel and a school. In Taranaki the settlers were of Devon and Cornish strain and in Nelson the pioneers came from round London. Many of them were Cockneys and broadminded, witth the result that they had a school svstem of their own for 20 years. The intense Presbyterianism of the Otago people resulted in a teacher In the early days being required to show all the credentials of a good Presbyterian before he could be appointed. In addition to that any of the seven members of the school committee could cast doubts upon his true bloodness and cause by engagement to be determined. All that went by the hoard when gold was discovered. “The people of Otago actually attempted to suppress the nows of the discovery because of the influx of unwanted miners of all creeds and nationalities there would be. But what was the use?” ho concluded. “It is impossible to hush up a find of gobi,”