Conclusion.

The events we have thus rudely sought to summarise are those of a lifetime only. The Hon. Dr. Pollen landed at the Bay of Islands in January, 1839, and, with the exception of a short visit to Port Jackson in the same year, he has been in New Zealand ever since. Better fifty years in Maoriland than a whole cycle of Cathay. In the half-century closing around us this day men have seen Governors and Governments pass away in rapid succession; our first representative of the Crown sleeps in God's acre in Symonds-street, the city of Auckland his monument. It is not given to many men—even captains in the British navy—to found such cities as Auckland and Sydney. But the watchword of both Phillips and Hobson was "Duty," and when men do what they ought to do, their actions generally are crowned with honour. Captain Hobson was sent by the Crown to found a colony, and to render subservient to the common weal the proceedings of the New Zealand Land Company. He was insensible to the threats or blandishments of the agents of the company, and when the end of his warfare came, Te Wherowhero, the future Maori King, recorded his opinion of the dead man in a letter to the Queen, which ran thus:—"Mother Victoria,—My subject is a Governor for us, the Maori, and tor the pakeha in this island. Let him be a good man. Look out for a good man, a man of judgment. Let not a troubler come here. Let not a boy come here, or one puffed up. Let him be a good man, as the Governor who has just died."

It was a difficult matter to govern a country inhabited by two warlike races; the one of the Stone Age, the other the heirs of the knowledge of Tubal Cain. The Maori held all the land of the country, and the pakeha all the money and the objects of desire to Maoridom. Each beheld with covetous eyes the possessions of the other. Heartburnings naturally sprung out of those diverse conditions, and only a strong and wise rule could cause these conflicting interests to become reciprocal and work in concord. When Parliamentary Government arose, in which the Maori race had no sufficient representation, war ensued, and the Maori, beaten but not subdued, had to be conquered by roads and railways passing through his domain, and by the introduction of immigrants in such sufficient numbers as to preclude the idea of his ever fighting again.

In thus establishing the rule of the Queen many blunders would necessarily happen, but we are entitled to point with pride to the results of our colonisation. We are a loyal, contented, and prosperous people, anxious above all other things to aid in the consolidation of the Empire, and to bequeath to our children and their descendants the priceless blessings of British freedom, and to aid in the future domination of the Anglo-Saxon race,