The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 1877. ASHBURTON EN FETE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1589, 21 June 1887, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 1877. ASHBURTON EN FETE.

Loyally and well have the people of this town and county taken their part m the universal rejoicings on the occa sion of the fiftieth anniversary of tho accession of Her Majesty. Peerless among monarebs pasfc or present, the Queen during her long reign has set a brilliant example of constitutional government, and has endeared herself to her people by the display of all those highest qualities of noble womanhood which she possesses m so great a degree as to make her the model and exemplar of the wives and mothers of the nation. She is loved and reverenced as truly and deeply as a woman as she is as a queen, and no bettor proof of this could be deßired than the enthusiasm with which the Jubilee rejoicings are entered iato wherever the British flag flies. Men, women and children of all races inhabiting her widespread dominions vie with each other m the expression of their hearty* goodwill, and, m its way, the demonstration at Ashburton, though on a scale which cannot compare with the magnificence of the pageants m the chief cities of tho Empire, was exceedingly interesting and noteworthy. The long procession which, with bands playing and with flags and banners flying, occupied over a mile m length, and m which representatives of all trades and industries took part, was m itself a wonderful evidence of the progress which has been made under the Queen's benefiCsnt rule. All this m a country which, when Her Majesty ascended the throne, lay waste and unoccupied, nay which so far as this immediate district is concerned was, even twenty years ago, almost a term incognita. A score of years ago cur plains were one unbroken reach of yellow tussock, our rivers unbridged, our lands unoccupied save by a few sheep, the whole country wrapped m a silence broken only by the shrill cry of the weka. And now far nnd wide are spread the evidences of civilisation and of progress. Plantations of trees adorn the landscape, and shelter thousands upon thousands of acres of wheat and oats and barley from the fierce nor'-westers that once swept unchecked from the mountains to the sea, comfortable homesteads dot the plain, and hundreds of well-built stacks speak of comfort and ot plenty yielded to the hand of the husbandman by the generous soil, here and there are cosy villages and nascent towns, surrounding our inland centre of Ashburton, which is on its way \ to become the city of the future, Verily a score of years have worked 'wonders, and when we reflect that what has been done here has been done m hundreds, might we not almost write thousands, of other places throughout the Queen's vast Empire since she ascended the throne fifty years ago, we recognise for how mnch tho nation has to be thankful, what just occasion there is for our Jubilee rejoicings. The Queen, like all her people, has had her times of sorrow, and her people have sorrowed with her, but as there is a time to mourn so also there is a time to rejoice, and that time is now. Thoroughly and heartily has this happy time been welcomed wherover the sun shines, and from one end of the Empire to the other the voice of joy and thankfulness is heard. Ashburton has done her part loyally and well, and more than one generation will have succeeded that of to-day ere the memory of the National thanksgiving which marked the Jubilee of Queen Victoria shall have passed away.