LEST WE FORGET.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2335, 29 September 1921, Page 4

LEST WE FORGET.

SIR FRANCIS BELL LOOKS

BACK,

STIRRING TALES OF DOMINION’S EARLY DAYS.

Addressing the annual winter social meeting of the Early Settlers’ Association at the Town Hall, Wellington, on Monday night last, the Acting-Prime Minister (Sir Francis Bell) said: “It is worth remembering that when, nearly a century ago, our fathers, under the guidance of MiGibbon Wakefield, gathered in London, and for several years discussed the question of the settlement of New Zealand, they were discussing the general question of emigration from a country which had just passed a Reform Bill, and in which the Chartist riots had been'so dangerous as to cause general alarm. It was, indeed, thought at that time that it would be well to make a New England —though still part of the England —(applause) —beyond the seas. The conditions are very nearly the same in England to-day as they were then, and I doubt not that the result will be the same in England now as it was then, within ten years of those stirring times. When the first settlers landed in Wellington—this is historic ground where we stand —they were rebels. The Mayor said that we did not have a municipality in those days; but the first thing the early settlers did was to establish a municipality, and Sir George Hunter’s grandfather was Ihe first Mayor in the first year of the settlement. (Applause). “But our fathers were rebels. Governor Hobson came here in a man-of-war. (Laughter.) The settlers had established methods of defence; they had established magistrates and a policeman, and, I think, stocks. (Laughter.) Bui this was high treason; and the Governor at Auckland had denounced the organisation here as practically rebellion. (Laughter.) If, however, the settlers had not come here, if our fathers had’not come and settled here, there would have been no English •settlement in New Zealand. It is due to the pioneers of 1840, and to those who organised the expedition of 1839, that New Zealand is an English colony to-day. It is true Iha t Governor Hobson arrived in Auckland almost in the same month —I think in the same month —as the first settlers arrived here; but Governor Hobson was dispatched in a hurry because the expedition of 1839 had left the shores of England, and that in opposition to the then English Government. That was what our fathers managed to do for the Empire and for New Zealand. The fact that the first settlers had to be removed to where we are now assembled, is marked by the fact that the streets were actually named after the ships (the Tory and the Aurora, etc.) that brought the first settlers here, showing that nothing had been arranged beforehand, and that the men and women who came here set to work to establish the new capital for a new country, and a new settlement. And what we owe to them —well, none of us can count. “His excellency has spoken of the growth of tlie country since. We have, no doubt, a great population, many scores of times as great as that of those settlers. But I doubt very much —I suppose I ought not to doubt—but I doubt very much whether the population to-day, taken man for man and woman for woman, is the equal of the men and women who came out in those first ships. At all events, many of us who are descended from them are grateful to the association, headed by Mr Jenkinson and Mr Edwards, which helps us to gather together still, and record something of the events of those days and of the men and women who founded New Zealand, and who by their sturdy courage preserved it to the Empire. I think that it is a gratification to all of us —I may call myself an old solder, I suppose. 1 settled here in ’sl; but not by any act of mine. I was born here. (Laughter.) But I think I have a right to call the older settlers brothers, because I think my father was secretary of the New Zealand Company in 1839, and saw everyone of tlje old settlers on board ship and dispatched every one of the first settlers to New Zealand. I can claim in that way association, and am proud with the other descendants of the first settlers. I think those first ships will be regarded in New Zealand in time to come as the Mayflower is regarded in America, and that as the men and women who landed from the Mayflower were the progenitors of an honoured line, so will it be with those who landed from our first ships, and to be descended from them will be the proudest record a man can have historically. I am grateful to Mr Jenkinson —though I certainly was not grateful to him when I came on to the platform —(laughter) —for having given me the opportunity of speaking, and to those who have allowed me to claim brotherhood and fellowship with those who were the brothers and fellows of my father.” (Loud applause).