MANY HAPPY RETURNS

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 306, 22 September 1934, Page 8

MANY HAPPY RETURNS

Lord. Bledisloe’s Birthday BEST WISHES EXTENDED “In welcoming their Excellencies I claim a privileg and desire to express a wish which I am sure his Excellency would not deny me,” said the Rt. Hot.. Sir Michael Myers, president of the Wellington branch of the Overseas League, which held a social gathering in the palm lounge of the Hotel St. George last night. “I happen to know, and I have not gained my knowledge from members of their Excellencies’ household but from other sources of information, that to-day’s date in the calendar is of special interest and im portance to Lord Bledisloe. I claim the privilege of wishing his Excellency many happy returns of th.e day.” (Ap plause.) “I hope the Governor-General will not mind me saying that I read with astonishment in a newspaper a statement attributed to his Excellency that he had. renewed his vouth through his association with New Zealand and its people. But, with respect, may I ask how that could be renewed which never has been lost?” Sir Michael Myers ventured to suggest that what was really meant was that Lord and Lady Bledisloe intended to pay another visit to New Zealand before his Excellency attained old age, and that then he ■would renew his youth by his association with New Zealand. Commissioner for Dominion. Continuing, Sir Michael said his onlyregret was that the occasion was a farewell as well as a welcome. He felt that when bls Excellency returned Home he would be a commissioner for New Zealand not only in matters of trade but in every other respect. “I am expressing the sentiments of the Wellington branch when I say their departure will be felt with sincere regret.” he said. “At the beginning of your president’s very eloquent speech of welcome, for which I thank him most profoundly, I suffered no small mental strain on the subject of age, which when one is past 60 one prefers to forget,” his Excellency said in reply. He had hoped that the knowledge of his birthday even among members of his household would be forgotten, but that day on the table of Government House, where a party of English schoolgirls were entertained, there was a large sugar cake which his Excellency had to cut with juvenile enthusiasm. His only relief was that it was not covered with candles, because that would inevitably have given the whole story away.