CORONATION INVITATION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 48, 27 February 1911, Page 6

CORONATION INVITATION.

That invitation has como to hand at last. The Premier said that he had : ;got it in October. In December he denied it, but he admitted that he had received a confidential intimation which might blossom into an invitation after the general election in the United Kmg- ' * dom. In January he denied wi£h themost virtuous indignation that there was l 'the slightest foundation for the statement which he made without reserve in. -October. The matter was then treated as dead by Sir Joseph Ward, and also by our London correspondent, from* whom we published (on Isfeh inst.} the full statement of the facts which Sir" Joseph Ward had declined to publish, even after his contradictory utterance©on'the subject ha-d mystified the public and made a clear explanation imperative. The invitation which the Premier has published to-day is dated the 24th inst., sand purports to come from "the Committee of both Houses of Parliament i representative of all parties." The previous communication which has not been published was doubtless considered ; ,-«s having sufficiently the con1 rstitution of the "Committee to i*ender any s further explanation unnecessary. With ,a public spirit and a generosity which ■ are entitled to the highest praise, this- ■ -Committee sends a formal invitation to eight members of the New Zealand Pari ,'liameni to be thecr guests in London fori <;a fortnight, covering the week of the'. Coronation. What is to be done? Sir Joseph Ward, to whom the invitation, of course, comes as a complete surprise, coyly oompkins that it is so sudden. It reaches him on the 25tk February, and a reply ia

requested by the 4th March— Vtfiich is indeed short notice. Yet as a matter of fact what reached the Premier on Saturday is exactly what he was told to expect more than four months ago. Ho was told in October to expect an invitation for eight members of Parliament, and this is just what has come. Acting on a similar intimation in October, the Commonwealth Parliament has been able to ■.make all the necessary arrangements months in advance, but our own Government's chief concern has been to insist that no invitation had been, received. A week is a Bhort time indeed for deciding ■ tie question, but we trust that both parties, having had the matter substantially before them since. October, will avail themselves of the munificent offer .and send the desired contingent. Not often in a political lifetime does such an ■educational opportunity present itself in so cheerful guise as that which is now - offered to a representative quorum of; both political parties.