Preface.

In presenting this book to the public, I feel that it is due to myself to explain that it has been written during the few and intermittent moments I have been able to snatch from my ordinary journalistic work. I say few and intermittent advisedly, because the constant grind of a daily newspaper is perhaps the nearest approach to perpetual motion that has yet been discovered. But this being the year in which Palmerston North has celebrated the silver jubilee of its municipal life, and Feilding has held its first Industrial Exhibition, it has appeared to me an opportune time to collect some of the fast-receding history connected with these rising towns and their rapidly-extending districts. I have therefore set out the statement of events found in the succeeding pages, and I have done so for two reasons —the desire to see as much as possible of the provincial history of New Zealand recorded before it is irretrievably lost, and the hope that a closer acquaintance with the story of Old Manawatu will create a greater reverence for the romantic past than I fear at present prevails amongst the young New Zealanders. In page breakmy treatment of the subject I have aimed only to trace those historic influences which have contributed in some degree to the measure of civilisation which we now enjoy, with here and there a flash in lighter vein perhaps, to illustrate some trait of character, or some phase of the social life of the early settlers. So far as the Native history is concerned, I have necessarily had to accept largely of Maori tradition, which may or may not be reliable, but which in all probability is just as accurate as many of the romances upon which European history has been built up. In the chapters dealing with the later periods I have purposely avoided unduly obtruding the personal element upon the reader, because the scheme of the book is to give a history of the place, and not biographical sketches of the people. Persons have therefore been mentioned only in so far as they have contributed to the development of large movements, or have been in some way typical of the times. A proper appreciation of this fact is necessary to prevent disappointment on the part of some who might otherwise think that they or their friends have not been given sufficient prominence amongst the pioneers. While I have not by any means exhausted the subject, possibly I have paved the way for a successor who may be blessed with more of time and opportuntity to elaborate it. But if within page breakthe pages of "Old Manawatu" some one should find something which he did not know before, then, small as the service may be, I will be justified in concluding that my labour has not been altogether in vain.