The Daily News. FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 1914. MARSDEN CENTENARY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 15, 5 June 1914, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 1914. MARSDEN CENTENARY.

Samuel Marsden, the pioneer missionary of New Zealand, was a great, and good man, and his name is never likely to be forgotten whilst New Zealand is peopled by Anglo-Saxon stock. Next Christmas Day will be the 100 th anniversary on which divine service was held in New Zealand, and it is proposed to mark the event by a special series of commemorative gatherings. This we learn from a circular received from tno Marsden Centenary Celebration Commission. Tho centenary celebrations will commence on Firday, December 11, when there will be a large public meeting in the Auckland Town Hall. A special feature of the celebrations will he the Church Congresi to be held in Auckland on February 8, 9, and 10, invitations of which have been sent to the leaders of the Anglican communion throughout the world, and especially to the leaders in Australia. The subjects set down for discussion include the Old Testament, the New Testament in relation to the Person of Christ, the Bible and Evolution, the Ministry, Modern Heresies, the Church and the Family, Mission Work and Problems. After the Congress, a special steamer will leave Auckland to take any members of the Congress and others to Russell and other places of interest in connection with the landing of Marsden and the establishment of Christianity in New Zealand. In order to bring the celebrations in reach of everybody in New Zealand, special services will be held on Christmas Day in every Anglican Church throughout the Dominion. In addition, it has been resolved to appeal for a special thanksgiving fund of £20,000 for educational purposes and a further »um of not less than £30,000 for augmenting the stipends of the clergy. The Commission expresses the hope that the celebrations will be of a national character, "since our occupancy of New Zealand is in a large measure due to the labors of Marsden and other early missionaries. But for these labors it it doubtful whether the treaty of Waitangi would ever have been signed and in that case the Dominion would, in all probability, has passed into the hands of France." It is further urg*4 by the Centenary Celebration Commission trat Marsden the missionary has a peculiar claim on the gratitude of those outside the Anglican communion, seeing that, though he was a devoted son of the Church of England, lie was, nevertheless, always ready to give liberal help to' the work of other religious bodies. In this connection, it is pointed out that he advanced £750 towards building a Presbyterian Church in Sydney, and that he presented the Weslcyan body with a valuable piece of land on which to erect a church at Windsor. We hope the Commission's appeal will not fall on deaf ears. Marsden's memory deserves to be honored more perhaps than that of any other man who has lived in New Zealand. He was not only a missionary, unselfish, devout and practical Christian, but an Ambassador of Empire, a patriot, of wide sympathies and noble aspirations,

ANOTHER RECORD. The Dominion has established a record for the value of its exports for the year ending March .11 last, the total being a few pounds short of twenty-four millions sterling, or nearly a million and a half greater than the value of the exports for the previous year. This for a country with only a million population is something with which to be gratified hut it does not by any means represent the full producing capacity of the country. In point of fact, the Dominion is in its infancy in respect to its pastoral and agricultural development, and with only a normal increase in population it is safe to say that great us has been the increase in exports during the past ten years, it will be nothing to what it will be during the ensuing decade. As heretofore, wool hat contributed moat largely to our exports, the value of the golden fleece, according to the Prime Minister at Dunedin, b«ing £7,500,000. Frozen meat showed a

very big advance, reaching the sum of £4,901,262, or a round million more than for the previous year. Hides, skins and tallow all show an appreciable increase. Records for butter and cheese were established. The value of the buttei exported was £'2,140;019, or nearly £190,000 better than the previous year. The increase was iu quantity, not in prices. Our cheese exports have now passed our butter exports, the value being £1,195.273 (1912-13. £1,859,179) representing an increase of £330,094 in value and 108,198cwt. in quantity. Dairy products now total .some £4,335,292, compared with the previous year's total of £3,915.794. an advance of £419,498. If. his speech at Dunedin, the Prime Minister said it was safe to predict a continuance of the present excellent market for cheese, an opinion which is shared by authorities like the National Dairy Aswoiation, whose figures in connection with the Dominion's export trade, published elsewhere in this issue, are well worth perusing. Mr Masscy believes that before long our cheese exports will reach the enormous total of 50,090 tuns annually. Things are certainly shaping that way. Compared with ten years ago, wo are now exporting more than eight and a half times the ipuintily and more than ten and a half times the value. Wu are well over the thirty thousand ton mark, and the fifty thousand point should not be difficult of attainment. Indeed Taranaki, were is to copy the methods of the Dane*.

could itself equal this figure, great as it is. The producing year, on the whole, has been very gratifying, and should do much to case the Dominion's financial position and make things better for everybody. But we must not rest satisfled with our present production; we must take every means within our power to increase it, for upon the success of our primary industries depends almost absolutely the future success I and prosperity of New Zealand.