BUILDING A NATION

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 84, 30 June 1927, Page 16

BUILDING A NATION

DOMINION’S GROWTH STORIES OF EARLY TIMES MR. J. W. SHAW’S LECTURE NEW ZEALAND’S only hope against the great menaces that can already be discerned on our horizon is a strong white population. We cannot build up this population ourselves, so we must have a steady flow from the Homeland. Ending his lecture on “New Zealand in the Making,” Mr. J. W. Shaw made this plea for the encouragement of emigration in the Grey Lynn Public. Library, last night. Covering a period of 10,000 years, the lecturer took as his main theme the fusing of the severed elements of the Caucasian race as exemplified in New Zealand. EARLY EXPLORATION He described the visits of the first explorers to New Zealand, and mentioned the theory that Spanish ships had been to New Zealand before Tasman came. A Spanish helmet had once been found in Wellington Harbour. Captain Cook he described as the greatest navigator of all time. Speaking of his voyage to New Zealand in 1769, he said that the Endeavour carried what was then a full Imperial crew. There "were 37 English, seven Scots, two Welshmen and two American colonists. For undertaking this voyage. Cook’s salary was five shillings a day. The lecturer protested against the word “ti-tree.” This, he explained, should be tea-tree, because the leaves of the tree had been used by sailors as a substitute for tea.

In the penal days of Australia, criminals committing capital offences were warned that the method of their execution would be a transportation to the New Zealand coast, where they would be released for Maori consumption. “This threat had a steadying effect,” said Mr. Shaw.

“Within sight of this library less than 100 years ago were massacres and cannibal feasts,” said Mr. Shaw.

lie then read gory extracts ' from old records, one of which concerned the dismemberment of a girl and the preparations made for her cooking. “One Maori complained because a knee-cap, which he wanted for a pipe had been destroyed, and another because he had not been able to get a leg-bone for a flute,” said the lecturer, turer. * * * A PERSISTENT WALKER Sutherland's cycle ride was a poor effort when compared with the effort °f one of Wellington’s early settlers. Wishing to see the country, he set out on foot from Wellington, and walked through wild bush country to the Bay of Islands. After a year he walked back to Wellington to inquire about his boxes. When he got there he found that his friends—and boxes—had vanished. So he walked back to Auckland. «* * * “Governor Hobson is a man who has been exalted,” said Mr. Shaw, “but he was really a narrow-minded man with no conception of the desire of the British people for expansion. If he had had his way. the colony would have ended where iit began. But in spite of this, it survived to go along the way of its destiny.”