THIS PRECIOUS ISLE

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24896, 8 June 1946, Page 6

THIS PRECIOUS ISLE

[By WHIM WHAM.) It was necessary to have a powerful body to represent all the local bodies of the South Island, to pash the island's interests and to support its claims. It w a s necessary to do something to check the tendency to regard the South Island as a mere appendage to the North Island, and to do something to check the drift of the population to toe north. The Mayor (Mr E. H. Andrews) replying to Mr T. H. McCombs, M.P., who spoke lightly of the South Island Local Bodies* Association. The Middle Isle, the Middle Isle, Where Tasman’s anchored Argo swung, Where Alps their moon-white Masses ’ Pile, Where Vogel boomed and Segdon sprung—pie same Seas roll in Bight and Bay, But still your Spring-tide ebbs away!

A dying Founder climbed the Hill That stands o’er Canterbury’s Plain, And there were Cities rising still, A million Children of his Pain: He counted them on Census Day, And in the Total—where were They? The Mountains look on Wellington, And Wellington looks on the Sea, And musing there a Year a-gone, I dreamed our Island might be free. And drew, in Fancy, through the Strait The Frontier of an Island State.

But who am I? And What are Thou, South Island, but a servile Soil That grows what Bureaucrats allow, That Apes in Offices despoil? And shall we dig each other’s Graves? Rise. Mayors and Councils! Rise, ye Slaves!