WAR LOAN TOURS

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 99, 26 April 1917, Page 7

WAR LOAN TOURS

BY NEW ZEALAND MINISTERS

YORK'S CASKET FOR MR. MASSEY

SPEECHES BY SIR JOSEPH WARD

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, 13th February,

Both the Right 'Hon. W F. Massey and Sir Joseph Ward have been exceeding]^ busy since our last mail left, and they have not spent many days at tho Savoy Hotel. They have been addressing war loan meetings, chiefly in the North of England, and their apj>eals have been of a most successful character.

So impressive was the loan appeal of Mr. Massey at Swindon that a farmer declared lie would not go to bed that night without investing J35000 new money, and two lamer brothers declared they would invest £5000 between them. Sir' Joseph WaTd was at Grimsby last week-end, and he met with a hearty welcome. He asked why he, from far-off New Zealand, was there that .night, and answering his own queryj he said it was because he was a British citizen. They felt in New Zealand that they must support the heart of the great Empire to which they belonged, the Motherland .of which they, were so proud. • No other pountry in the world could have done what 'Britain was doing. Already 3462 millions of money had been spent on the war, of which 300 millions was lent to R-SSsia. He asked the audience to remember that for an hour while they were sitting there, £240,000 would be Bpent. In an hour and a-half £360,000. But if it cos^t £500,000 an hour ho believed they wouM subscribe it sooner than sse the war miscarry. They in New Zealand, had done their part and raised £J2,000,000 of money, and he urged the claims of the loan upon everybody. MR. BONAR LAW'S MESSAGE. On the occasion of Sir Joseph Ward's meqting at West Hartjepool, My. Bonar Law telegraphed : " Hartjepools are to be congratulated on the opportunity of welcoming Sir Joseph Ward, not only for his own sake, but as ex-Premier of New Zealand, which has played so splendid a park in the wg.r. Tell the people of the Hartlepools that it is upon small subscribers just as much as large that I am relying for the success of the loan, anfL that I count upon their support to the utmost of their capacity." Last night Sir Joseph ♦as in happy vein at Leicester. He told his large audience, tl]at they must npt .run away with the idea, that their birth and residence in England gave them An inalienable right to be the owners of the British Isles. New Zealand belonged to them as much as the New Zealanders; the British Isles belonged to New Zealanders as much as to Britons. This loan was ,a Victory War Loan, and it | was not only the credit of Great Britain that they were offering, but the whole j security of the British Enipire. There i waa no security in the world to equal it. He pointed out that to the Fourth Qerman Loap. there 'were 3,700,000 sub-, scriheTS; jt was their bounden duty to , wipe this numb&r clean out of sight, ' Leicester h^'d dqno well, but he had been at a place lately where £7,500,000 was ' subscribed. He appealed to all to " get t busy and beat that total." (Applause.) EMPIRE INDUSTRIES. I Mt. 0. C. Beale, past president of the Australian Associated Chambers of Manufactures, read an interesting paper before the Royal Society of Arts on the subject of our. industries after the" war. He argued on the' sugar problem that the British Empire wa^ well able^to produce all the sugar it required, q.nd in connection with meat he asserted that a, combine controlled the industry in the United States, and had extended its control to Argentina, and was making vigorous assaults upon the industry in s Austral(a and New Zealand. Sir Joseph presided in the absence of Mr Walter Long, whose son, a briga-dier-general, had just been killed in , Franco. Sir Joseph said he was certain , that Mr. Beale had voiced the opinions | of the people of the Dominions, and o: at least a large proportion of the people of this country, in so far as he had expressed, dissatisfaction with the pre-war conditions under which' our enemy had been making .tremendous advance at the expense of this country and of the Dominions. In New Zealand he had, been instrumental in passing an Act which provided that the moment- peace had been declared an extra 50 par cent, tax was automatically placed on everything imported from an enemy country. YORK'S CASKET. A' charming example of the work of students at the York School of Arts and Crafts is 'on view in the Council Chamber of the York Guildhall. It is' the casket cov-taining the scroll of the honorary Freedom of the 'City presented to the Right Hon, W. F. Massey, at the end of last year. The casket is of oak recovered from the Minster after the great fire of 18{59, and is covered in calf leather, with silver decorations. The "arms emblazoned in enamels are those of the City of York and of New Zealand. Thp scroll is on vellum, and is illuminated in gold and colours, the decorations including the' arms of the city together with the floral emblem of York, the white rose, and the floral emblem of New Zealand, the silver fern. BELGIUM'S THANKS, On the occasion of Mr. Goode's paper dealing with relief work in Belgium, read before the Uoyal Society of Arts, his Excellency the Belgian Minister placed on record his appreciation of the part played by New Zealand in this matter. Sir Joseph Ward, who spoke a few words, deolared that Nefcr Zealand remembered the fact that at the beginning of the war they, as a section of the British community, had been saved by Belgium from the terrible disaster that might have overtaken the British Empire, and however much information might be viciously circulated with the object of interfering with the charitable disposition of the people of New Zealand, they went back to those first principles which had been their guide in connection with the relief of Belgium. The people of New Zealand had already spent some £2,000,000 in providing comforts for their soldiers, besides doing many other things for the support of the men who were fighting for their King and country. In addition to that, 1 they had sent £764,000 to this country to help the Belgians and Servians, and also to help those who had been Mt by the noble men who fought at the Battle nf Jutland, and the Government of New Zealand was now giving £10,000 a month to the National Committee in London. ON THE STUMP. * - Sir Joseph Ward is still on duty as a War Loan orator, and is tit present in the North of England. Mr. Alaseey completed, at Yarmouth, last night, his series of live meetings—tbe others being Stockport, Batley, Peterborough, and Swindon. His vjait tp Yarmouth was suggested by the member for the district, My. A. Fell, M.P., who is a New Zealnnder by birth. Besides being a-vary pleasant event, it was unexpectedly suecPßgful. Yarmouth has suffered very severely by the war, the fulling uiduatry being practically , dwd, and jtfe*

people have been more harassed than anywhere else by Zeppelin visits. During this phase of German frighlfulness, Yarmouth was visited more than two dozen times by Zeppelins* In his speech, Mr. Massey strongly urged his hearers to waste no time in becoming financial shareholders in the firm of John Bull and Song. He had heard they were a sporting community, and that they often picked things that were not winners. But if they would take his tip- and back Wai- Loan, he could promise them it was a moral. (Laughter.) Up to to-day Yarmouth is believed to have subscribed £345,000 to the "War Loan. Swindon, where Mr. Massey spoke a few nights ago, is a town practically made by the Great Western Railway and entirely populated^ by their mechanics. There are very few capitalists in the place, but Swindon, neverthe less, has contributed £150,000.