FAITH IN COUNTRY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 131, 15 March 1935, Page 2

FAITH IN COUNTRY

NEED FOR ADVERTISING. t LORD BLEDISLOE’S FAREWELL. (Special to the “Guardian.”) WELLINGTON, March 14. New Zealanders learned something more about themselves and their country during the course of Lord Bledisloe’s reply to the farewell address presented to him at the citizens’ meeting here to-night. The gathering, which was held in the Town Hall, was. the last that Lord Bledisloe will attend before leaving New Zealand after being for five years its Governor-General. “You New Zealanders—pakehas and Maoris alike—are curiously unaware of some things that you ought to know,” declared his Excellency. “One of them is that you have a greater variety of beautiful scenery than any other country in the world, and that, if duly exploited and advertised, your tourist traffic ought to be your most lucrative Industry—a source of immense wealth as well as of aesthetic and spiritual inspiration. Another is that you are the world’s most lovable people. It is indeed your amiability and tolerance rather than our merits which you should appreciate and, see reflected in your all-too-generous valedictory encomiums. “Your loyalty to the Crown is robust, universal and unchallengeable. Let me add that his Majesty was much touched and gratified by the cordial and generous welcome accorded to his son. Bench and Newspapers Praised. “This is not the occasion to assess in detail the qualities of your people, your natural endowment or your future prospects as a nation and as a partner in our great British Commonwealth of Nations, whether industrial, social, financial, ethical or cultural. But this I can say, and Gay with confidence as my own settled conviction after a quinquennium of meticulous study and observation of your country, its resources and its potentialities, that I, for my part, have no qualms regarding its future prosperity, happiness and progress, provided that you are blessed for the next decade—which should open up for you a new era of confident progress—with wise and farsighted statesmanship, sound public and local administration, productive efficiency, generous educational enlightenment, andi a growing sense of national solidarity and mutual interdependence. “The influence on the standard of life of a modern democracy and on its ethical outlook of an incorruptible and intellectually-endowed Judiciary and Press is immeasurable, and in the£e respects no part of the overseas Empire, is .better equipped than New Zealand. The standard of achievement of your judges and magistrates and of your Press is a valuable national asset which in your best future interests I trust may never be lowered from its present high plane. “Warm and Loyal Hearts.”

“We have travelled far and wide since we entered your territory (perhaps more extensively than any of oui predecessors), and have visited farms, mines, factories, wharves, shops, warehouses and ships, and have become acquainted with those who work in and upon them. We have found everywhere not merely lovely scenery and a healthy atmosphere, but .warm, loyal hearts and a courage and resourcefulness in times of earthquake disaster and widespread economic tribulation which has been to us a veritable inspiration and a source of pride in the steadfastness of your people. Whatever may be your country’s transient superficial maladies, it is sound at the core, its heart-beat is steady. It will respond to the stimulant of the better times that are coming. “The time has come for us to say a final good-bye to this beautiful Dominion and to its loyal people of both races and all classes, whose friendship we have enjoyed and valued and who have made us so happy in their midst. Whatever words we employ in saying it cannot fully describe our feelings You have made us feel so much at home during the last five years that the parting’ is to us a severance of strong ties of attachment and a sudden breaking away from an anchorage which threatened to keep the ship of our lives for ever in your relatively tranquil and congenial waters. You speak of the Old Land as ‘Home.’ We shall find it difficult in future to apply the term to one part only of the British Empire.”