RAGLAN MATTERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4225, 29 May 1875, Page 2 (Supplement)

RAGLAN MATTERS.

To the Editor of the Herald. Sir, —In your paper of-the 15th instant your Travelling Reporter writes unjustly of a good man long gone to his account. As I knew the Rev. John Morgan and the Otawhao station in its palmy days, be kind enough to allow me a small space in reply. Granting that Mr. Morgan did not possess the tact to keep his scholars in the order and under the discipline seen at Kohanga and Taupiri, yet many of his pupils now living honorably and respectably prove that the school was not a failure ; and if I were asked who weie the greatest benefactors to the native race, among the foremost names I would place, without any fear of contradiction, that of Mr. Morgan. I recollect the Awamutu and its neighbourhood a veritable " land of Goshen," when three cornmills were at work, and wheat and flour sent down the Waikato in large quantities. Now, had your correspondent made impartial enquiry who was chiefly instrumental to so prosperous a state of things ; who first taught the Maoris to use the plough, and grow wheat and other grain; who first brought the fruit-trees from the East Coast, and taught the natives to graft; in fact who made the Awamutu one of the most interesting spots in New Zealand? —the answer could only be the name of the man whose memory is so harshly dealt with. No one who knew Mr. Morgan could doubt his earnestness in his missionary duties; and while the two churches and the station where he laboured stand, they will remain fitting monuments, not only of a good man, but of one eminently useful in his time. Your correspondent has been misinformed respecting the causes of the war, and the influence Mr. Morgan had in that disastrous event. No man in New Zealand had a greater interest in the maintenance of peace, and no man suffered more in mind, body, or estate from the war than Mr. Morgan.—l am, &c., W. Harsant. 1 May 25, 1575.