Ideal Public Servant

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 14857, 20 December 1948, Page 5

Ideal Public Servant

Horticultural Director Honoured Career Founded On Love

Of The Soil

(P.A.) Wellington today. “An ideal public servant,” was the description applied by the president of the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture (Mr R. L. Macalister), in reference to Mr W. K. Dallas, who has retired from the post of director of the horticultural, division of the Department of Agriculture. To mark his retirement after 40 years in the Public Service, Mr Dallas and Mrs Dallas were the guests of honour at a luncheon arranged by the institute. Mr Macalister said that Mr Dallas, a Fellow of the institute, had always been courteous and helpful in his official capacity, and had rendered outstanding service to the people of New Zealand. “Love of the soil and what it can produce,” said the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Cullen), “made Mr Dallas choose his career. He started from the bottom and went to the top. On behalf of the Government I thank him for his long and faithful services.”

Other speakers included the Assistant Director of Agriculture (Mr R. B. Tennent), Mr Willie Wah, on behalf of the Chinese Growers’ Association, Mr Thomas Waugh, for commercial nurserymen, Mrs Knox Gilmer, on behalf of horticultural societies, including garden circles, throughout the Dominion, and Mr J. G. McKenzie, one of the founders of the institute.

“I did my best, and a man can do no more,” replied Mr Dallas, who said that in following such able former directors of his division as Mr T. W. Kirk and Mr J. A. Campbell, he had had a difficult task. However, his retirement did not mean leaving Wellington, he said, and his services would always be available to the institute and to garden lovers generally.