A RETROSPECT.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2678, 10 September 1889, Page 2

A RETROSPECT.

TO THK EDITOK. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind, etc. Silt,—Now tlwt Young New Zealand is fairly seated upon her stool of repentant: ■, it mav possibly be instructive to Younu' New Zealanders to read from an actual reprint of the past what old New Zealanrlers said and did, when they in like manner, in the year 1841 were seated like E.iiies of Erin on their st >ol of repentant;; in the then new settlement, and now great city of Auckland. I allude to tho leading aitielo of tho New Zealand Herald ami Auckland Gazette, of Saturday, the Uth August, and others of 18-11—or -IS ye ns ago—which I would ask you to reproduce in your Saturday's issue, feeling sure that many young New Zealanders would like to sea for themselves what took place in those days. I therefore place at your disposal my old files of the aoove-meutioned journal. Also five copies of the Kororaieka Observer of 1811. At the time the above-mentioned articles were printed, thecity of Auckland cmld not compare with Hamilton either in -size, importance, or population. An eight bullock team could not haul more than half a ton at a load in Auckland's principal streets. Shortland Crescent and Queen-street were lands considered high at ill 10s to £3 per foot. The colony was supposed to be over head and ears in debt, the.n being £31,000 in debt to New South Wales. Bread was 2s p9r 41b. loaf; beef and mutton, Is per lb. ; sugar, £2 i>s per cwt. ; flour, £3 5s per barrel; fowls, 12s per couple ; eggs, Gs per dozen. A whole family were murdered by natives in the North ; the Waikato Ngatitamatara and Ngatipara tribes at deadly war with the Tauranga tribes, and yet the old New Zealanders nothing daunted, never turned tail, but, as called upon by their leaders in England, under Divine Providence, by the energy, the capital, the virtue, the capacity of Englishmen, made our colony advance and prosper. And now young New Zealanders read for yourselves what our fathers have done and then act for yourselves, and, accepting things as they are, make the best of them, and take the lead for yourselves. Men and money are wanted in New Zealand, and to old England we can still look for both, if we will only be true to ourselves and be honest, bank and loan companies must give up to the settlors and the farmers the task of rearing stock and slick to their last. They are only warring against their own flesh to do otherwise. If lauds are too highly valued they must be reduced. For people, not paupers are wanted in new labour. No matter at whose cost it must be more people must be induced to come and settle amongst us. And these people must be those such as came as Pilgrim leathers' of old, to establish homes, and to stand by through depression and war, to defend those, not the rolling aristocratic ar democratic stones, who ever did and ever will roll on downwards into the muck below, but the Briton or European and Gorman, whoso ambition is to own his own hearth and home, and will fight like a lion to hold on to it, no matter how humble it may appear to others. To him it is " Home Sweet Home." And let Governments at thenown peril legislate against the such. Eor the charter is that " Biitons never shall be slaves," neither of an aristocracy or of a democracy. Eor if need be they will thrust aside both, and appeal direct to the Crown fur relief and get it.—Yours respectfully. William A. G hah Air. The Lodge, Hamilton, Sapt. 9th, 1880.