A VALUABLE WORK OF REFERENCE.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3250, 13 July 1871, Page 3

A VALUABLE WORK OF REFERENCE.

The amount of ignorance displayed by English writers when treating of Australian events has frequently been remarked. Not simply in newspapers, where the compilation of articles and paragraphs is necessarily very hurried ; but in magazines and books professedly written as works of reference, do we find the grossest geographical and historical blunders, which are remarkable, considering that there are many works available to authors from which really authentic information can be oblained. In the Corporation Library of the City of London we doubt not there are many such works; yet here is a specimen of the historical and geographical knowledge of its librarian. The passage occurs in a work entitled, " The Dictionary of Chronology ; or a Historical and Statistical Registry," compiled and edited by William Henry Overall, F.G.A., Librarian to the Corporation of j the City of London: — " New Zealand, discovered by Tasman, 1042; Captain Cook visited the island, 3 769 and 1774 ; first settlement made by the English, j 1815 ; government established, 1833 ; T^'ew Zealand Company formed, 1837; received its charter, 1839 ,* dissolved, 1851 ; made a colony by charier, November 15, 1840 ; separated from New South Wales, May 3, 1841; Captain Hobson, the founder, and first Governor, from January, 1840 to September, ISJ2; Bishopric established, 1843 : war de- J clared against the Kaffirs, April 4, 1840 ; Legislative Council opened by Sir j George Grey, December SO, 1848 ; a representative constitution granted to the colony by 15 and 10 Vie, c. 72, June 30, 1852 ; goldfields discovered near Goulburn, January 17, 1853 ; termination of the Kaffiv war, February 22, 18o3; great distress among the Kaffirs, November, 1857 ; war again declared, in consequence of a dispute about land, May 3, 1800 ; the natives submit to the English, March 19, 1801 ; war renewed, 1803." As the book will probably be referred to by other writers and speakers on colonial topics, it is very likely the errors thus so authoritatively propagated will become perpetuated by many leading authorities, until the rising generation of colonists, in order to show their acquaintance with the early history of their country as set forth in standard English works, will really have to accept the statements, and suppose it was so. The blunders serve to throw light upon one historical anomally of the present age. We refer to the clearer statements of the historical facts and events of preceding ages by modern writers than by those historians who preceded them, and who, from the fact that they lived at an age more nearly contemporaneous with the events of which they treat, might have been expected to give the most reliable details. The whole secret of historical accuracy lies in the reference to standard authorities, and, of these, State papers and blue-books are after all the only ones that should be trusted by compilers of a " Dictionary of Chronology" or an "Historical and Statistical Registry."