COURAGE OF EMPIRE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 184, 6 August 1925, Page 7

COURAGE OF EMPIRE.

STONEHAVEN ON HIS TASK.

MESSAGE FOR AUSTRALIANS.

LONDON, July 27.

"No greater honour can befall a Britisher than to be selected to represent the King in Australia," declared Lord Stonehaven, Governor-General designate of the Commonwealth, who was the guest at luncheon of the Australian and New Zealand Club.

"No doubt we will make mistakes," he added. "All we ask is for Australians to be a little blind to our faults and kind to our virtues."

Lord Stonehaven quoted Gordon's lines:—

"Life is mostly froth and bubble; Two things stand like stone— Kindness in another's trouble, Courage, in our own."

He said: "If one were asked to sum up the characteristics of the Australian and British race, he could not do it better than in these words. All of us who have been in Australia have felt these feelings, and have seen their result.

"I was at Ypres early in 1915. and my brother, was at Poperinghe, and having a very thin time. I met the London buses on the way to Poperinghe, filled with men going to relieve his men, singing 'It's a Long Way to Tippcrary.' Within half an hour those men fought like tigers and died like heroes. I realised then that one could translate Gordon's words into the homely expression. 'Flaying the Game.'

"It is because we have that spirit at heart that we can face the difficulties which now confront us with courage and the certainty of success, relying on our fellow-countrymen in Australia to pull their full weight. A more difficult situation was faced by British democracy from 1914 to 1918. We are now suffering from the results of that cataclysm. Tt is true now, as Pitt said, 'We have saved ourselves by our courage, and we must" save Europe by our example.' Because of such courage as that, I feel proud at being chosen to fulfil the splendid office which I am undertaking."'

The Australian High Commissioner (Sir Joseph Cook) said that Lord Stonehaven was disposed to be a flighty person— (laughter)—as he would endeavour to get into the blue empyrean as the first fly ins Governor-General. Personally, he (Sir Joseph), like the old lady, preferred "terracotta." Lord Stonehaven could adequately fulfil his flying bent in Australia's sunny clime.