SAME IDEALS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 97, 5 February 1936, Page 2

SAME IDEALS.

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND. MR SAVAGE’S SENTIMENTS. (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Feb. 4. “Sometimes politicians get in the way and make themselves a nuisance, but I am looking forward to tile time when the people of New Zealand and the people of Australia, realising that they are of the same stock, with the same ideals, and with a common destiny, will work together for good as one man.” This sentiment was . expressed to-day by the Prime Minister (the Hon. M. J. Savage) at Parliament House when Ministers of the Ci own gave a welcome to the champion baud of Australia, the 31st Battalion Australian Military Forces Band, which is visiting the Dominion to take part m the band contest at New Plymouth this month. The Prime Minister, on behalf of the Government, welcomed the visiting bandsmen, and offered congratulations to the citizens of Cairns (Queensland) for their enterprise in sending a band so far to take part in the New Zealand contest.

“As an Australian, I know what a land of distances Australia is,” said Mr S'avage. “The people of New Zealand will appreciate your far journey. The stretch of water between Australia and New Zealand may have seemed rough to you on your recent voyage, but after all tliere is not a great deal of it between us. There certainly is not enough to keep us apart. I can see no reason at all why in any circumstances Australians and New Zealanders should be as foreigners to one another. Wo come from the same stock, we speak the same language, although New Zealanders may not yet know the real Australian talk. Wo have the same interests, and we have the same goal. You will feel at homo here, and will receive the same ready hospitality as New Zealanders enjoy in Australia. I am not here to talk politics, but I feel positive that by working together Australia and New Zealand will accomplish something worth while, and make life worthy of our common ideals.”