THE DEPARTURE OF LADY RANFURLY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 272, 14 November 1903, Page 4

THE DEPARTURE OF LADY RANFURLY.

When the lonic leaves Wellington this afternoon, the colony will lose one of the most popular and most widely respected of all the representatives of royalty that we have ever welcomed to these shores. It has been our good fortune that tljere has always been much that was admirable in the character and conduct of our vice-regal rulers; but without attempting any invidious comparisons, we may justly say that throughout the colony Lord and Lady Ranfurly hold a unique position in the popular esteem. The feeling between the pecrnle of this colony and

Lord and Lady Eanfurly has been mere a question of sympathy and less a mat. ter of formality than such sentiments' usually are. Other governors may have maintained the dignity of their p os ;, tion and observed the strict limit of their powers with equal success.' But with the virtues of official ''correctness" the Ran'furly family has combined other claims upon our respect and sympathy His Excellency and the Countess haya established between them and us a degree of confidence that can be produced in such circumstances only by the tactful courtesy, the kindly feeling and the genuine sincerity that they have invariably displayed; those who have watched their career in this country cannot fail to attribute much of this success to the social accomplishments and personal charm of Lady Ranfurly. But we have to thank the Countess for 1 -more than this. She lias been an able and zealous promoter of philanthropic and charitable movements; and the Veterans' Home and the Maori Girls' College are not the only institutions which owe a lasting debt of gratitude to her kindliness of heart. It is as a woman even more than as the leader of our social life or the representative of the Crown amongst us that we esteem Lady Ranfurly; and we believe that the whole colony joins to-day in our wishes for her welfare and happiness.