The Evening Star THURSDAY, JANUARY 2, 1913.

Evening Star, Issue 15072, 2 January 1913, Page 4

The Evening Star THURSDAY, JANUARY 2, 1913.

; If the average citizen had been asked to suggest two names of New . New Year Zealanders likely to be inHonors. eluded in the list of Honors ■* tt- « - /' hkh ifc is cu st°marv • for His Majesty to bestow on distinguished personages throughout the Empire ' at, the commencement of a new year he would pro- . bably never have included either of the two gentlemen on whom the marks of Royal favor have just fallen. Yet it is difficult j to quarrel with the selection which the | Governor and his Advisers recommended to j King George. There may, perhaps, be a i suspicion that Sir Walter Buchanan's Knight Bachelorship is something ia the nature of a solatium for his non-inclusion in the Ministry which Mr Massey formed six months ago. His claims, for example to the portfolios of Lauds and Agriculture' . especially the latter, were backed by long and faithful service to the Party, and by special and peculiar knowledge oi the work , with which those departments of State have ''■ to deal. On the other hand were his age \«uul the. possibility of prejudice in some

quarters on the ground of his being a l avg6 landowner. the counter-balance, wl faiX exact; but, ere in a vmt * cases self-seeking would have been thrown mto the one scale, in this case self-sacrifice was thro wn into the other, and the veteran cheerfully remained a p riva to member, Joral and staunch as before. If the present reward comes on that .account chiefly -we see no valid grounds for questioning 'it • bub ire prefer to think that the prime factor 1U .Mr Buchanan's selection for knighthood is Lis pioneering work as a colonist, He emigrated to Australia in the early days of even that continent, and many are the tales he can tell of rough and primitive life in places where and in times when the blaekfellow was a slippery and sometimes dangerous co-dweller in isolated country. Coming to New Zealand, Sir Walter found no undertaking too adventurous for him, and as the country became opened up he settled down— not to an easy life, but to the more prosaic one of improving the land and the breed of stock depastured on it. Jnto this also he threw the energy that had distinguished all his efforts in earlier life. He succeeded in the best sense. He acquired great wealth, while at the same time helping others on the road to prosperity. He has been in the front rank among those who have built up the Dominion's primary industries. The minor honor which has come to Mr Stowe, Clerk of Parliament, signalises long service in this branch ot work, for it was as far back as 1864 that he served as clerk of the Marlborough Provincial Council. Of a somewhat retiring disposition, and secluded in the quiet atmosphere of the Legislative Council, he is not what may be termed a well-known figure. Of the others who have participated in the New Year Honors, the names of Sir Percy Scott and Sir George Sydenham Clarke are perhaps best known in this part of the world as those of men of Empire. Sir Percy Scott's name will never fail to be associated with the gun carriage he improvised for the naval 4.7 gun during the Boer War, at a time when the enemy's heavy artillery, so easily outranging the British field artillery, was a serious handicap to. the success of our forces. Since then he has done much to raise the efficiency of the gunnery in the Navy; and in times when, unfortunately, Europe resembles a.n armed camp, the man who helps to keep his nation in tho forefront as regards engines of destruction is, paradoxically perhaps, a. benefactor of his race. Sir George Clarke, us Governor of the neighboring State of Victoria before going to fill his present important post in India, was at least known, by repute to many New Zealanders, and to those who have watched his career it is no surprise to see him elevated to the peerage. Some of the other Honors appear to have been conferred mainly on political grounds, which in Britain means service of one kind or another rendered to tho dominant Party, not necessarily in the House of Commons; but it • is gratifying to find that research in the fields of science—and, in Dr Phillip's case, work in such a. humanitarian cause—has received due recognition at the hands of the King.