AUCKLAND SPECIAL.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 113, 22 May 1901, Page 4

AUCKLAND SPECIAL.

THE OLD FLAG. (Special to Times.) Auckland, last niglit. The Maori flag mentioned in the cables yesterday as having been presented to King Edward by Major Asquith, was sent from the New Zealand high chief Te Heuhcu, of Tokoanu, Lake Tapu. It has historical associations. A POPULAR CHIEF. It is proposed by the united Maori tribes that To Heuheu shall read the address of welcome which is to be presented to tiie Duke of York at Rotorua nest month. ' DEPARTING AUSTRIANS. Numbers of Austrians left for Sydney by the Waikare yesterday. There has been a steady stream of these Austrians from our shores, and the number of those who have left here since last Christmas is now upwards of 200. They find there is not sufficient work on the gumfields to employ the large number that came here some time ago. THE MAORI DISPLAY. following extract from a letter written by Mr J. O’Meagher, and appearing in Saturday’s Herald, will be read with interest by Gisborneites :—“ There will be a large assemblage of Maoris of both sexes at Rotorua clothed as they may be, and upon whom His Royal Highness and his gracious, charming consort will be expected (by Richard Coeur de Kumara and his henchman Hemi) to gaze with rapture and delight, but I understand that but one hour will be devoted by the Royal pair to the inspection. Sir, there is something behind the attitude of the Premier and the Hon. Mr Carroll, when they have decided that Mahuta, the Maori king, shall not be recognised by the Duko. The pretext for this, I am told, is that the Duke cannot recognise any Maori king. What utter rubbish 1 What an absurd subterfuge on the part of Wellington —poor, squabbling Wellington, whose every obscure greengrocer must have the procession to run up his stinking lane or he will not subscribe.

“ Divide et Irnpera ” is a very good motto, but to use it now against the highest Maori chief in the land is, in the highest degree, impolitic and offensive. Therefore, I say, let Mr Hemi Carroll have his picnic of one hour at Rotorua, but let the people of Auckland awake to the fact that King Dick and his henchman desire to throw cold water on the splendid reception which we shall, in spite of them, accord to our guests. There is only one course open to all resolute people of Auckland—arrange for Mahuta and his Waikato adherents to come here with all their canoes by rail, and if the Railway Department blocks the movement in any way, or declines to carry by rail the canoes, then I fancy such vigorous citizens as Mr J. J. Craig and Mr Winstone would send up their teams and (unless King Dick blew up a few bridges) launch the canoes on the sparkling waters of the Waitemata, on whose bosom the ancestors of Mahuta floated, fought, bled, and disported, long centuries ere there were any King Dicks or Hemi Karas in this lovely land.”

NEED OF MEN,

*• Tohunga ” writes as follows in the Auckland Herald :—No need of fresh men ! Just get on to a horse and ride it, day after day, week after week, month after month, under the burning mid-day sun of the sub-tropics, nursing it every mile, seeing it get weaker and weaker on poor grass, remounted at long intervals, but pushing on all the time 1 Sleep cold under the gleaming stars of the great plains, whore firewood is a luxury, and with a tightened belt for the second and third courses of your evening meal! Go thirsty over waterless stretches! Toil ever after a hardlyseen foe bom into the saddle, supplied with change-horses, and knowing every by-path and short cut of the veldt ! Grow saddle-weary, until every joint is full of aches, and sleep will not come to you 1 And if you are doing this for your country, and are kept up by the proud determination to uphold the fair name of Now Zealand, imagine your feelings if you hear from home that there is no need of fresh men 1 It is in the long pull that the inwardness of men is tested, It is when enthusiasm palls and excitement passes and cold, hard stubbornness alone counts for righteousness that the gods sift out the man who is loyal and true with all his heart from the men who shouted because others shouted, and thrilled over the war-fever as over an exciting melodrama or a sensational divorce case. The “ mob ”is always given that way, of course. Society is what it is because grit and determination, like faith and ability, are unequally distributed. But if among us there is health and strength enough to rival the heroic annals of our fathers in the unwritten annals of New Zealand, to grasp and to hold by -sheer, honest strength, and with less cunning and brutality than any other nation past or present, we must nip in the bud any insidious movement to weaken the national policy by appealing to our weak side and cloaking instability with vanity, by persuading us that we have made most amazing sacrifices, and have, therefore done enough.