COMPANION OF HONOUR

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26441, 7 June 1951, Page 6

COMPANION OF HONOUR

Mr Holland Becomes Member Of Order APPOINTMENT BY KING (New Zealand Press Aeeociation) WELLINGTON, June 6. His Excellency the Governor-General (Sir Bernard Freyberg) has received advice from London that the King has been pleased to appoint the Rt. Hon. Sidney George Holland, Prime Minister of New Zealand, to be a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour. Mr Holland is the eighth statesman from the Dominions to be made a Companion of Honour. The Order carries with it no title or precedence but it ranks after the Ist Class of the Order of the British Empire. Not more than 65 persons, who must have rendered conspicuous service of national importance, are admitted to the Order. . The badge of the Order is an ovalshaped gold medallion suspended by a carmine riband with a gold border from the neck. The Order was created in June, 1917. The late Mr Peter Fraser was the first New Zealand Companion of Honour. Other Dominions statesmen who have been similarly honoured include Viscount Bruce of Melbourne, Mr R. G. Casey (a former Governor of Bengal), Sir Godfrey Huggins (Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia), Mr W. M. Hughes (a former Prime Minister of Australia), Mr Vincent Massey (a former Canadian High Commissioner in London), Sir Earle Page (Australian Minister of Health and a former Resident Minister in London), and Field-Marshal Smuts. Mr Holland has been Prime Minister since the 1949 General Election. First elected to Parliament as member for Christchurch North (now Fendalton) in 1935, Mr Holland was appointed Leader pf the Opposition in 1940. He ?® rv ® d in „ the , First World War with the New Zealand Artillery.