HOME RULE ENVOYS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 152, 28 June 1911, Page 8

HOME RULE ENVOYS.

ENTHUSIASTIC VISITORS. 03y Telegraph.—Own Corresjjpndent.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. Messrs. W. A. Redmond and J. Donovan, Home Rule delegates, arrived in Christchurch this evening, after a visit to the West Coast, during which they experienced the boundless hospitality that has made that part of New Zealand famous. They spent nine days on the coast, addressed nine meetings, collectover £1300, established the Home Rule cause, and carried away with them golden opinions of the people. They were specially impressed with the fact that the Press of the Coast is unanimously in sympathy with them. At the large centres they were very well refcejvedj AVestport alone contributed .•£250 tp their fund, and Greymouth, £460. The greatest day of all the tour, however, was at Ross, on Thursday, when they were given the honour .of distributing Coronation medals to the school children. They described it as a Coronation Day long to be remembered. Each delegate at the conclusion of the proceedings found that his record for the day was eight speeches, every patriotic phrase and sentiment evidently having been exhausted in the great effort.

Coming through the Otira, they were stopped on their journey by 'the men employed at the tunnel, who said that there were large numbers of supporters of Home Rule amongst the workers. A meeting, composed mostly of young workers from different parts of the Empire, was addressed, and a sum totalling between £40 and £50 was collected, l"a \ery handsome contribution," the delegates said, when relating their experiences. Mr. McLean invited them to inspect the tunnel, aud they went to the works,- in which they were much interested. The two visitors are evidently immensely pleased with their tour, and impressed with the signs of prosperity on the Coast, and the indications for future expansion. They describe the scenery in rapturous terms, and express pleasure at the fact that although the forests of the West Coast: may be destroyed in a utilitarian age,! no human force can dig up and take' away the Buller and the Otira gorges. Mr. Redmond, who has seen all'parts .of Switzerland, believes that it has no sights so fine as the Otira presented this morning, with icicles lining the roads, and he says that the Matterhorn "is not in it" with the Rolleston Glacier. The delegates report that up to the present time between £6000 and £7000 has been collected. Altogether the prospects are so promising that it is expected that the fund will reach £10,000, double the total obtained by the previous Home Rule Mission to New Zealand.