IN COMMEMORATION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2153, 31 March 1908, Page 3

IN COMMEMORATION.

CAPTAIN COOK’S MEMORIAL. GISBORNE INEPTNESS. Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, March 30. It is proposed to place on the memorial to Captain Cook, in Ship Cove, Queen Chariot to Sound', a cannon of the period to which Cook belonged, and'arrangements have been made to ado-ot this proposal. Air. McNab, however, pointed out to a reporter in .Christchurch that tho cannon might not be considered altogether appropriate. Cook was iii the Navy, but his position amongst the immortals has beer, gained not by anything he did as a naval officer, but by his humanity and the peaceful manner in which lie conducted his great mission. He presented the Maoris with grain and animals for food, and Air. McNab thinks that it would be better to work into the design symbols of peace and progress rather'than a symbol of war. A visitor to Christchurch, who was in Gisborne some time ago, states that the citizens of that town felt indignant at the ineptness of those who placed the names of South African troooers on tho memorial erected to Captain Cook on the spot where he first landed in New Zealand, near the entrance to the town. On one occasion recently, it is stated the troopers’ names were ‘bespattered with mud. ; The Hon. It. McNab, speaking to a reporter on Saturday, said that the memorial has a double significance from a national point of view. It not only represents Cook’s first landing in this country, but also the first record of the landing of a European, and lie thinks that that ought to be set out on the tablets. Neither Tasman nor any of the members of his company landed in N.Z. Tho Maoris had a legend that a white man landed on the west coast of 'Wellington, opposite Kaniti Island, before Cook’s time, but there is no authentic record of this, and the honor as far as history goes belongs to Cook.