NEW ZEALAND PAY IN LONDON

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 24, 29 January 1934, Page 10

NEW ZEALAND PAY IN LONDON

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I understand that our New Zealand friends in London have again this year decided to celebrate "New Zealand Day" in that city on February 8 next. If this is so, it is a pity, seeing that the matter was discussed with them last year, and it was understood that in future their date would bo brought into line with the New Zealand date, namely, the 6th proximo. The celebration in London is hold to commemorate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, and as that document was signed on February 6, strictly speaking, its signing should be celebrated on that day. It is true the ceremony of Saluting the Treaty was performed on the Bth, but since treaties of "cession" —suck, as the Treaty of Waitangi was—do niot require ratification, that function was a notification to the outside world that the treaty had been effected, rather than a ratification of its completion, in New Zealand. The view accepted hero today is that adopted by Captain Hobson, viz., that the document signed at Waitangi, on February 6, 1840, is do facto, the treaty, and that "the signatures subsequently obtained arc merely testimonials of adherence to the terms of the original document." From an international point of view Hobson's attitude might, at that moment have been arguable, but it is not arguable now, seeing that the cession of the country to the British-Crown was never challenged by a foreign Power. February 6 can therefore be accepted as the date of signing the Treaty of Waitangi, and if it is so acknowledged in New Zealand, it is to be regretted if it is not uniformly observed by New Zcalanders in London. —I am, etc., T. LINDSAY B,UICK. ■,