The Waikato Times AND THAMES VAĹEY GAZETTE. TUESDAY, FEB. 4, 1890.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2740, 4 February 1890, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VAĹEY GAZETTE.

TUESDAY, FEB. 4, 1890.

Tiik City of Auckland has given itself with great energy to the calibration of the Jubilee year of the colony. The country districts lent their aid, and thousands flocked to the city with their families. The J übilee was kept up with spirit for four successive days. Sports were well attended. Steamers were crowded, and every place of pleasure was thronged. Processions paraded the streets, the Governor spoke appropriately, and all went merry as a marriage bell. One may now ask what single permanent memento has been left behind ? In nothing, except iu magnitude, has the Jubilee celebration differed from the anniversaries that have preceded it for 49 years. Not one of the founders, the fathers of the colony seems to have been assigned a suitable part in the proceedings. The omission was curious, Hamlet was played without the chief character, but this oversight, ctimiob now bo remedied. The jubilee is itself among the thing* that were. More curious and suggestive still, no other province or district attempted a celebration of the event which reminds us that, just fifty years ago the British Hag was hoisted, and this noble colony opened for the homes of a prosperous and happy people. There is room for reflection in the evident anomally, and proof that tho spirit of patriotism is still undeveloped among us.

despito the foudiioss and pride which ovory Now Zealaiuler feels for tho country that has become his, either by birth or by adoption.

Withouttraditions and without an interest in tho past, it is impossible to develop a patriotic spirit in any country. Only one-half of our population has been born in tho colony, and of that half a very great number are still infants or little beyond. Tho remainder is a mixod crowd, resident for a greater or less period iu the colony, without a knowledge of its past, and without even the traditions which they have come among us too rapidly to absorb. They are proud and foud of the country of their adoption, and entertain the most firm belief in its future greatuess. But that is not the living patriotism, without which a narrow, local spirit must prevail. The seeds are there, but the Jubilee Committee lost a splendid chance of starting their growth. No outsider could view the long procession o£ Benefit Societies and other bodies, wending its way through the streets of Auckland, -without feeling that he was only looking at a spectacle not at all, by itself, apt to the occasion. The great throng of onlookers admired, and was pleased, but not a cheer was heard excapt when the beautifully embowered waggons of the Band of Hope passed with their loads of healthy happy youngsters, singing their characteristic songs. The fire brigade, with its apparatus of all kinds covered with green boughs and decorated with lively flowers, afforded a pleasing sight;. The garbs and banners were admired as the societies streamed along the streets. The Governors spoke well, and were applauded, but all seemed tame and dead when contrasted with the ringing cheers we have heard oi occasions with real grit in them, such, for example, as the cheers which followed the procession of which Sir George Grey was the central figure ten years ago. Nor can there be a doubt that they would have risen with equal enthusiasm at this Jubilee procession, if Sir George Grey had been its central figure, and around him had been gathered the men who took part in the birth of the colony. Numbers have joined the great majority, but many still live. All politics, all differences should have been sunk for the occasion. Grey, Pollen, Wbitaker, Williams, Campbell, Maunsel, Burrows, Barstow and many more, of all opinions and all conditions in life, might have tilled carnages in that procession and given it the soul it so much needed. There should have been heard the old ringing cheers. Then we should have seen enthusiasm, and have felt the first throbbings of the patriotic spirit more precious than armies and navies, and without which no people can become great.

The occasion has been missed and the omission can be partially repaired. To do so, we know of no better proposal than the one made by the Herald, to establish, in memory of the Jubilee, a New Zealand Historical Society in connection with the Auckland Institute where officers and machinery would be at the society's service. The traditions and the history of the colony, the vicissitudes and struggles through which the present position has been reached, must be made familiar to all, if a genuine living patriotism is to exist. Many a valuable diary, instinct with the life-like character of an eye-witness, now lies useless. The interesting little work published by the Rev. Mr Burrows a couple of years ago, brought home to us the war in che North, in 1845, in a manner peculiar to contemporary records of the kind. Bishop Pompallier's diary is also published. A small book of n similar kind has just issued from the pen of Mr Colenso, who tells the story of Capt. Hobsou's arrival and the subsequent proceedings as written down by him at the time. The Herald's suggestion is apropos of a published letter from Mr Colenso, in Napier, to Mr Wildman, in Auckland, and we hope that it will not be allowed to drop. The issue of such works is almost certain to be a pecuniary loss in the first instance. Popular interest must be exerted in the history of the colony before they can be made to pay. To individuals, the loss would act in many cases as a deterrent. To a society the expense could not be a consideration, and the formation of such a society would appropriately mark the Jubilee of the colony. Only, let it be a colonial society in the broadest sense of the term, and undertake the publication of early records connected with the formation of all the provinces, each of which has its characteristic origin and struggles for existence. A wide-spread knowledge of these struggles would excite an interest of the most healthy kind, and foster the patriotic spirit without which our politics, our literature, and our progress as a people, must be narrowed and dwarfed for many years to come.