INVENTOR’S TRIBUTE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 122, 21 February 1928, Page 15

INVENTOR’S TRIBUTE

EDISON ON NEW ZEALAND A special feature of the broadcast from station 2YA, Wellington, on Saturday night, in celebration of the eightyfirst anniversary of the birthday of Thomas Alva Edison, was a gramophone record of a message to New Zealand spoken by the great inventor himself. This was the first occasion that Mr. Edison had spoken for a gramophone record for broadcasting. The text of Mr. Edison’s message is 'as follows: — “It is a far cry from my. laboratory here in this northern land, in its garb of ice and snow, to you in your land of sunshine and flowers under tho Southern Cross, but science with its magic makes it possible for me to greet you with the spoken word, though thousands of miles apart. Surveying the progress of Nerv Zealand in world affairs, it is difficult for me to realise that its establishment as a colony of the Mother Country was practically coincident with the ' year of my birth. During my lifetime I have witnessed many changes, but nothing quite impresses me so much as tho remarkable growth of New Zealand. From a handful of sturdy British emigrants who established the colony in 1840, the population of the Dominion now totals nearly one and a half million. The scattered parts of the colony have expanded into many thousands of acres teeming with agricultural activity—a remarkable monument to the grit and enterprise of those •who have so rapidly developed the land. Your harbours filled with shipping carrying products I to all parts of the world is another demonstration of growth. Not so long ago I saw some statistics issued by the United States Government at Washington revealing the amazing fact that New Zealand occupies the conspicuous position of enjoying the highest export trade per capital of any country in the entire world—a marvellous showing. This present-day aspect of the country, added to its agricultural and industrial life, is a tribute to the dominant spirit of the people of the Dominion —all this practically in the span of a single lifetime. We here in the United States find much to admire in the growth of the simple school of the early pioneer days in Wellington to the present splendid educational institutions, with their realistic application of the democratic principle of unlimited opportunity for tho youth on the land. Looking ahead into the future, one feels secure in predicting a country alive with agriculture and industrial growth, its rivers giving an abaundance of power development aiding its progress, and a people steadily and courageously fighting forward to make their land one of happiness and contentment. lam glad of this opportunity to greet _ you and to extend my cordial good wishes for the continued prosperity of your land and people.”