MR SECOND AND NEW ZEALAND.

Feilding Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 1457, 9 June 1902, Page 4

MR SECOND AND NEW ZEALAND.

A Halcorne resident has received the following from a friend in South Africa : - " Knowing your very strong admiration for Now Zealand's Premier, (Mr Seddon), I thought I would send you a cutting from the Maritzburg paper, also a paper from Durban, showing you what they think of him in this country. You can understand my feeling, old man, when this country praises New Zealand, her men, and her Premier. New Zealand troops have a name far above any others in South Africa, and well they deserve it. You will see that they look upon Mr Seddon as a second Rhodes, and when they say that you can understand that he is looked upon as a great man." Soon we shall have the pleasure of welcoming Mr Seddon to the shores of Natal. He has left New Zealand, and the steamer on which he travels will call at Durban. Now that MiRhodes is dead one looks upon Mr Seddon and Sir Wilfred Laurier as the two most imaginative and strenuous of Colonial statesmen — the two men who most appeal to the imagination of the Empire. In its way nothing could possibly have been finer than Mr Seddon's reference to the Methuen disaster in his farewell speech to the Ninth New Zealand Contingent. "He thought Lord Kitchener wanted more mounted men, and as a set-off against Delarey's success, the colony was ready to send another thousand mtn." To supplement this extract from the New Zealand Premier's speech we cannot do better than quote the remarkable telegram sent by Mr Seddon to Mr Chamberlain on March 14th : — " The jubilancy of a section of the people of Paris and Germany over Methuen's miahap has raised a strong feeling here. No doubt that feeling of resentment prevails also in Canada and Australia. It is the intention of New Zealand to offer through the Governor of the Colony another contingent of 1000 men. I believ© that Canada and Australia will be willing to send further assistance. Time opportune. Do not miss offer of additional troops from oversea dominions. It will have good moral effect at the present juncture. Do not hesitate to accept and send every mounted man available. Increased mounted force will supplement Kitchener's splendid efforts, thus going far to end struggle at an early date. Pardon this obtrusive suggestion. Our earnest desire to see the war ended before next spring will I hope, be accepted m extenuation." Mr Chamberlain replied promptly, acknowledging " the splendid spirit of patriotism " shown in the offer, and Lord Kitchener also telegraphed to Mr Seddon that he could not express sufficient thanks for the great help the New Zealand Government has offered him, and' that there are no men whom he would sooner have in the field than the gallant New Zealanders. When we reflect that New Zealand has sent G,OOO men, the flower of her manhood, to fight in South Africa, at a cost of £400,---000, we realise what Empire means to-day. Yet there are men in our House of Assembly who have the cynicism, the gross|selfishness, and the unspeakably bad taste to sneer at a proposal to contribute to the Navy on the grounds that Natal has spent quite enough money over the war. A war, remember, waged in the direct interests of Natal, to which the other colonies, with no such direct interest, have sent their best and bravest,- because of the bond of Imperial kinship. — Mant/.burg paper.