A VISIT HOME.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2064, 31 March 1909, Page 5

A VISIT HOME.

AFTER THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS.

The Hon. T. Kennedy Jlnedonald, M.L.C., was granted six months’ leave of absence from the Harbour Board meetings, and has left Wellington, on medical advice, on a rtip to the Old Country. Mr Macdonald, who was born at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, in 1874, left that place as a boy for Dundee, where lie was educated. He has been a resident of Wellington for; thirty-seven years, and during that time has taken a keen jnterest in local and general politics. Wellington citizens, in wishing him “bon voyage, 1 ' will hope, that the rest and sea journey will bring about complete restoration to health. In the course of a reminiscent chat with a “New Zealand Times” reporter Mr Macdonald said: \ “I arrived in Wellington in IS7I. The first year I landed i was account-j ant to Jacob Joseph and Co., and after that I was with Joseph Nathan and Co. Then I retired from the latter firm to take up the secretaryship of ; the New Zealand Titanic Steel and Iron Co., which spent about £'30,000 in Taranaki in an unsuccessful attempt to smelt the iron sand there. After that I established the Equitable Building and Investment Co. in Wellington, wihch has been such a successful enterprise ever since. I also established.' the W’ollington Gear Meat Co., whichd has paid 10 per cent, from the day off its birth. After that I launched the Wellington Woollen Manufacturing C 0.,; of which I was chairman of the Board of Directors for ten yeans. “So far as my pubile career is con- ; corned during thirty-seven years’ residence here that is pretty well known.. I have watched the development of Wellington from a small village to the ; fine citv it lias grown into. “You ask me my belief in the future of Wellington? 'lt is stronger and: clearer to-day than it has ever been. I look forward with the greatest hope to the immense future that is in front of this city. Few men realise what the effect of the main trunk line fe o-oing to be in the. general develop-, ment of commerce that will ensue ; and , superadded to that you will find on. immense impetus in the trade or the; citv and the harbour, through the com-; pletion of the Panama Thecrospel we have to preach persistently ; is that of hope and faith in ourselves, j ami I am not in- sympathy with- the; pessimistic utterances one hears now-; adavs from men who nave made vast 4 sums of money out of the development of tho citj. . , “There is one thing I am thonktUE for after sixty years of strenuous life —1 leave for a short absence witfeall ; my faith in the city clear and confident,, that it- has. a great future before it. <