1927 - Saunders, A. Tales of a Pioneer - XL. A PERSONAL REMINISCENCE, p 215-218

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CHAPTER XL

A PERSONAL REMINISCENCE

[Note by Compilers. --This chapter is kindly contributed by Alfred's friend, Mr F. J. Alley. ]

"COME and hear one of New Zealand's Grand Old Men," remarked a Springfield elector to me in the nineties; so together we stepped across to the little schoolroom where Mr Alfred Saunders was on his last victorious campaign--not the final one of 1896 when Mr Wason defeated him. The rugged, sturdy frame, the quiet, clear, convincing style, the ready fluency of speech, the complete absence of the arts and finesse of the "wily politician," deeply interested me in a personality of which I had heard and read, but which I had never before met face to face. More impressive still was his final campaign three years later, when, quite alone, he drove horse and buggy to the most distant outskirts of his large Selwyn electorate. It was a happy ending of a long political career, that Alfred Saunders, the lover of horses, the writer of a book on horses, should farewell politics in the company of his animal friend.

As member of Parliament, or lecturer to the local debating societies, Mr Saunders paid several visits to our little village. I remember his advocacy of the Hare

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system of voting, of which he once gave a practical illustration in a mock election. The Elective Executive was another reform dear to his heart, Mr Saunders holding strongly the view that Parliament itself should elect its own Ministers, just as any other elective body, from a school committee upwards, appoints its officers on a democratic vote of its members.

Mr Saunders made frequent reference to the little Republic of Switzerland, where a mixed Protestant and Catholic nation, mainly German, or French, or Italian in nationality, had dwelt for half a century in peace and amity. If these once warring sects and religions could overcome the barriers of race and creed, why could not their European neighbours do likewise? Here, before W. T. Stead's time, was the germ of the United States of Europe, and an era of universal peace.

Perhaps the best part of Alfred Saunders' political meetings was the period devoted to questions. Here his quick mind, his encyclopedic knowledge of all colonial events and problems, his noble sense of duty, always won supporters; but he could throw away votes too.

"If you want to send a man to Parliament who will squander public money on paltry local works, don't send me," he replied to a demand for a bridge over the village ford.

As one of the founders of our New Zealand system of education, first in Nelson, whose system the rest of New Zealand copied, Mr Saunders did noble pioneer work, and when, in the sixties of the last century, statistical information was being collected, it was shown that Nelson Province spent more money per head of population, and showed less illiteracy, than any other province, not excepting Scotch Otago. Eventually the outcome was our National System-- "Free, Secular, Compulsory." Later, Mr Saunders settled in Canterbury and gave twenty years of continuous, faithful service to the North Canterbury Board of Education. These were the "hard times" for teachers, before Seddon's colonial scale of salaries protected the luckless teacher from the periodic retrenchment, when building funds were low; and doubtless Mr Saunders shared his part of the resentment that filled the minds of teachers in the nineties and the first decade of this century.

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He was ever the foe of denominational education, and I can remember his wise sayings, -- "There is more of the 'Sermon on the Mount' taught without the Bible in schools than with it"; by which he meant that the kindly spirit of toleration and brotherhood, the absence of the narrowing sectarian spirit, were the very essences of true religion. "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice," was the spirit of his creed. As a practical educationist, he was an advocate for less "drive," more "lead"; for "come" not "go." Speaking once in his quiet, forceful, suggestive style to a deputation of teachers waiting on the Board in the old Normal School corner office, in the days of Mr J. V. Colborne-Veel's secretaryship, Mr Saunders narrated how he had once paid a "surprise" visit to a little country school on examination day, and had found the children crying in one corner, the teacher almost in tears in another, the books thrown about, and (the cause of all the misery) the Inspector in a towering rage. Luckily that type of Inspector is now extinct.

As a practical physiognomist, Mr Saunders showed considerable skill in reading character, though he emphasised what might be called the average interpretation from a close study not merely of the face and head but of the whole physical and mental being.

No reference to Mr Saunders as an educationist would be complete without a tribute to his large, two-volume History of New Zealand, in the stirring scenes of which Mr Saunders was often not merely a spectator, but an actor. For he was "the first settler who landed from the first emigrant ship that entered Nelson Harbour on the lst February, 1842." Now that the grand subject of history has risen to such prominence in our Universities, lovers of Maoriland can rely on the help of an historian who, up to the time of his death, knew more of New Zealand's Parliamentary history than any other living man. Quite characteristic of Mr Saunders is a brief but delightful account of Julia, the Maori Grace Darling, whose noble deed he honours in two pages, and whose noble face and kind maternal eyes help to fill another page.

And so this Nestor of the House of Representatives, this temperance reformer, "the first man to take a pledge in the Province of Nelson," this dietician with his simple tastes and practical knowledge fifty years ahead

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of his age, this noble public servant with probably the cleanest, whitest record in the political life of New Zealand, passed quietly to his rest, pillowed on the sustaining hearts of his dear American Poets. What a comfort they have been to such reformers as Alfred Saunders! Whittier's noble hymn, "My Triumph," with its matchless exaltation, its triumphant faith in Right, has filled many a dying ear with the melody of its angel voices, so strong, so sweet, so intensely human and Divine.

F. J. ALLEY,
Late Headmaster,
Wharenui School,
Riccarton.