MR JORDAN VISITS HOME TOWN

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21966, 15 December 1936, Page 9

MR JORDAN VISITS HOME TOWN

NEW ZEALAND’S DEBT TO

RAMSGATE

fFSOM OUE OWN COHKESPONDEVr.)

LONDON, November 19,

Just as New Zealanders are proud of their countrymen who distinguish themselves in England, so are English people proud of their sons who find honours abroad. Ramsgate, the home town of Mr W. J. Jordan, High Commissioner, is particularly gratified at the success he has achieved. Its people invited him to be present

at the annual Mayoral banquet, and asked him to reply to the toast of “The Visitors,” among whom he was one of the most distinguished.

Mr Jordan spoke with groat feeling of his love for the Homeland and Ramsgate in particular. Wherever one travelled across the world, he said, there was always a deep attachment to the place where one derived one’s birth and infant nurture. “I have never felt a greater thrill than I feel to-night, after hearing the kindly words that have been spoken in this, my birthplace,” he said. “It is delightful to be again in Britain. We in New Zealand refer to it always as the Homeland.” After speaking in reminiscent vein of his early years in Ramsgate, Mr Jordan said that New Zealand owed something to Ramsgate. It was from St. Augustine’s Abbey in 1882 that Abbot Luck took his faith to New Zealand. He became the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Auckland, and he laboured there for 14 years, building churches, schools, and establishing the faith among the Maoris. Other names in New Zealand which were associated with St. Augustine’s were Bishop Lenihan. Abbot Wilfred Alcock, Father O’Gare, Monsignor Mahoney, and the Rev. Anselm Fox, who returned to Ramsgate to fulfil an important mission. There was also the Rev. Mr Tinsley, formerly of the Ramsgate Methodist Church. “When we hear Ramsgate in our country we prick up our ears,” he said, amidst applause. , . , Speaking of the relationship between New Zealand and Britain, Mr Jordan said there was scarcely a person in New Zealand who was not related to someone in Britain. The people of New Zealand were not another people; they were the same people, inter-dependent and interlocked with Britain. When' Britain suffered through unemployment and when wages were cut, they in New Zealand were also affected. He pleaded for continuous and increasing co-operation between the two countries.