LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2461, 14 May 1915, Page 3

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

A NOTABLE ANNIVERSARY

Sir,-Sunday, Mav 16, is tho fiftythird anniversary of the death in Wellington of ICdward Gibbon Wakefield, the founder of lirilisli Dominion in South Australia and New Zealand. Ho yas born in London in 1796, and died in this city in .1862. All his time from about. 1826 to his death was devoted exclusively to tho work of seeming and settling first South Australia and then Now Zealand for our race and nation. I am not overstating the case when I say that ho was one of the most remarkable of tho great men who flourished during the long reign of the. great Queen "Victoria. One of hi 6 most bitter and persistent opponents, a journalist and author cf these far off times, writes of him iu this strain:— • "Mr. E. G. Wakefield's twenty years' experience, during which he had directed the colonisation of South Australia, Wellington, Nelson, and New Plymouth, besides planning half a dozen others; energetic, tenacious, indefatigable, with a wonderful talent for literary agitations, for simultaneously feeding a hundred journalists with the same idea and the same illustrations ill varying language ; for filling eloquent but indolent orators with telling speeches. At one time he liad rallied around him nearly ,every rising man of political aspirations and secured tho support of- nearly every economical rriter of any celebrity."

Again he says of E. G. Wakefield:— "He was the friend and chosen adviser of Republicans andßadical, Whig and Conservative Peers, Low Church and High Church bisliops; five Secretaries of State for tie Colonies, Lords Glenelg, Stanly, Monteagle, .Aberdeen, and Grey, have been more or less his pupils. The influence of his writings, even quotations i'rom them, are to oe' found in their dispatches. He has shaken a Ministry, and founded at least two colonies, and as late as 1850 he sent captive to Canterbury, New Zealand, a crowd of educated victims."

And again this writer says:— ''From attacking Wakeiield'6 colonial policy in print I ventured on every fitting opportunity to attack it in public," and- then he goes on to give a very interesting description of "a great meeting ho attended in St. Martin's Hall to launch the scherao for the colonising of Canterbury, Now Zealand." A distinguished American author and historian, Professor . Frank Parsons, Ph.D.', of Washington, in a history of New Zealand, published in Philadelphia, gives the-following description of E. G. Wakefield in a highly eulogistic account of him and his work. He writes: "Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the founder of the colony, a man of clear thought, noble purpose, and splendid energy, who organised a movement in England for scientific _ colonisation, careful selection of colonists, sals of land at a gooa price, and use of the funds for public purposes. Three-fourths of New Zealand was colonised by companies acting under the influence of his philosophy. Before he turned the tide of public opinion, England had been in the habit or regarding colonies as convenient dumping grounds for convicts and other social refuse. M'akofield began his agitation in 1829, when Australia was looked upon as an Imperial prison, and New Zealand was a group of cannibal islands, notorious for the bloody feuds of its savage tribes. In a few years, he won 50 miich support that he founded two colonies, Soutli Australia and New Zealand, both of which have proved brilliant successes. His teaching affected legislation for and by all the Australian colonies."

In conclusion, allow me to again urge the people of New Zealand to organise a grand national recognition of the great and grand national services so Freely rendered by the long-forgotten Wakefields.—l am, etc.,

J. H. COLLIER. Northland, May 11, 1915.