Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, MARCH 11, 1940. OUR FIRST HUNDRED YEARS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 March 1940, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, MARCH 11, 1940. OUR FIRST HUNDRED YEARS.

MUCH as war events and demands at present hold attention, 1 they have by no means made us as a people indifferent to the significance of the present year as marking the completion of a century of nation-building in this country. _ that the commanding importance of the national eentennia is ap preeiated has been made manifest in many ways and not least in local celebrations like those that have already taken place in some Wairarapa towns and are to be continued this week in a series of appropriate and Well-organised events in Masterton.

In an important aspect, the celebration of the eentennia is a salute to the pioneers who laid the foundations 01. national life in this country and built upon those foundations—a salute which takes added interest and meaning from the tact that we have still with us veterans of pioneering days whose lives coincide with a very considerable part of our .total national history to date. We are in the happy position of being able to honour and pay tribute to worthy traditions in the presence of some of those by whom the traditions were made..

While'it is not for a moment to be suggested (that the settlement and development of this country have been earned out on lines that are admirable in every detail, there cannot be any doubt that the total achievement of our pioneers entitles them to whole-hearted admiration and respect. The settlement and development of New Zealand are pari ol a colonising achievement, in this country and in others, which is without parallel in the known history of the world. While that achievement is essentially British, there lias been eo-opei ation also by people of.other racial stocks. It is one ol the glories of British colonisation that people of varied national origins have combined, nowhere more notably than in New Zealand, to form a united body politic, happily free from those majority and minority problems which are responsible in no small degree for the present tragedy of world conflict.

The realities of national achievemeTit. which are being celebrated in our centennial year are great and remarkable in this respect, as well as on account of the conquest of the wilderness and the material progress and expansion which have been witnessed in the hundred years now ending. Much as we owe, however, to what was best in the spirit of'our pioneers, the centennial is by fio means an occasion only for looking backward.

We stand today as a people on the dividing line between one century and another and the celebration of the centennial would have, little force or value if it did not quicken in ou.r hearts the determination to build a future in every respect greater than our past. That, should be the meaning and the inspiration of our centennial year, above all for the youth of the Dominion, with their future before, them and with the opportunity, not only of continuing wind was best in the life and spirit of the pioneers, but of making the ultimate achievement of the pioneers a point of departure for new effort and achievement.

Like all other examples of human effort, the achievement of the pioneers was of necessity imperfect and embodied mistakes and shortcomings. If, however, there are in that sense ;md to that extent definite limits to the homage we owe to the past, it remains true that in the example of the pioneers at its best there may be found a great, incentive and inspiration to cont inning effort. The pioneering and in a measure the later development of this country 'was made possible by qualities of courage and enterprise going hand in hand with the ability 1o build, to be patient and to endure and with powers of vision which enabled the pioneers to prepare the way in some measure, in provision for education and in other ways, for a life more amply provided and of larger possibilities than many of them eonld ever hope to know.

Of qualities and powers like these we can never have 100 much in the evolving life and development of our country. Il is in the extent Io which it implies an understanding and appreciation of the best characteristics of our pioneers and a determination that these eharaeterisl ie.s sha II he perpetuated, and shall find ever fuller expression in the treatment of the problem and opportunities by which the people of this country are and will be faced, that our national centennial celebration is really worth while.