GENERAL HAMILTON.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 89, 21 May 1914, Page 3

GENERAL HAMILTON.

HIS RECENT SPEECH.

THE TERRITORIALS. Press Association. NEW PLYMOUTH, May 20. General Hamilton and his staff, after inspecting the parade of Senior Cadets, were entertained at dinner. The General also visited the veterans' gathering, where in a speech in reply to a toast he said that he was pleased with the, work of the Cadets in Taranaki and New Zealand generally. >. Touching on his visit to South Africa two years ago, the General said tho war helped to sweep away the old racial bitterness, which would never return. The Boers, who formerly avoided Natal as being purely British, now visited it frequently as'a seaside resort. In a speech this morning Sir lan referred to the recent cable from Tokio concerning his reported remarks at Auckland that the Pacific would Se a possible battle-ground of Asiatics and Europeans. He said he was unfortunate in incurring the displeasure of certain organs of .the Press of an allied Power, but the report on which this displeasure was based , must have been spiced in erossiug 'the tropics. He , had merely put a hypothetical case that had seemed a sound thing to the effect that as nations gr-ew bigger, wars were les* frequent but more ..terrible. He could imagine a period when empires would v-ompme »rcat continents, 'and such a continental empire might have to face a coa'ot of arm* or economies. He had *>ai.l that .New Zealand would do woil to be prepared. : ,In. an interview with <thc ' News," Sir, lan said he had given no foundation for the rumour as published in Napier that he would condemn the Territorial system. No report would escape him till he had his boot on the gangway of -the boat which took him from New Zealand.