A FOUNDER OF NEW ZEALAND.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1037, 28 January 1911, Page 15

A FOUNDER OF NEW ZEALAND.

SIR FKEDEIUCK YOUNG, There was one bravo, white-haired, wliite-inousiaclied gentleman, who took part in discussion at the Royal Colonial 'Institute, courteous, With the very perfect; gentle milliners of a much statelier ngc— the sort of manners for which there would hardly ho lime onough in a modern day, but which, warm your heart when you do come across them. He was 93 years old, and lio was one of the original .founders—perhaps the onlv one that is still living—of New Sir Frederick Young. "I can see the luncheon that was given the day the ships started off with'the first colonists for Wellington," lie told me (writes the London correspondent' of the "Sydney Morning Herald"). "There is (he UuUo of Sits- : sex .in the chair—l think I can see him now, in his skull cap—he was the eon. of George 111, you know. He made a speech—nothing very special." ' That Duko of Sussex is the one after whom thoy named Sussex Street, Sydney—and tho banquet ho presided at was held in 1830. Sir Frederick Young may almost he called a worshipper of Gibbon Wakefield, who was the great moving spirit in the colonisation of New Zealand. Wakefield died in the 'sixties; but his hold' ever those around him was such that bis old discinlo nearly half .a century after his death still speaks of him with an enthusiasm that is almost pathetic. "To think I should have lived to see' all tho things lie told mo come true," ho said. "We were inclined to think that they wero tho visions of—well, of an enthusiast. But this New Zealand .—tho things we read about and .hear about to-day—l know it's truo now. It was only what Wakefield, said. He ofteu talked to mo of it. As a young man I used to go down to Reigate, in Surrey, where his house v was. Wo would start off on Jong walks early in the morning, through tho country lanes—lie on his pony, and I walking beside him and listening to him almost as if no wero a prophet. Ho was a head and shoulders ' above all the other men in the movement, and tho spirit of the whole thing. I have known him havo 10 M.P.'s down at his house at one time*—talking, them over and interesting them in tho scheme, lly father was an lI.P. then, and AVakefield got him interested, and mado him ono of tho first directors of the Now .Zealand Company. That was how'l came to know him. Wakefield was not a re-ligious-man, and ho had his faults.. He 'started badly, by running away with a 'ward in Chqncery. Lord Durham met ■ him', and because. I- believe, ho saw what !a brilliant man ho .was; he took him to ; Canada as his secretary. Afterwards, iwheh he came Home, this New Zealand I scheme gradually . formed itself in his ■ mind. My' brother came under the ! spell of his ideas, and. went to New Zealand; but, although t) have been, bound ! up by such interests as these with tho : foundation of Now Zealand, I havo never !seen New Zealand myself." As a .matter :of fact, it- was owing to tho very sad ideath, of Sir Frederick's brother, who iwas'drowned in the Wairau River, that ' Sir Frederick himself did not go to New I Zealand. But when, the Canterbury Asj sociation; was started, he was in chargo 'of tho selecting and shinning' arrangc'ments in England. " ■'■