NOTES AND COMMENTS

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 4014, 14 June 1920, Page 2

NOTES AND COMMENTS

The Lean-to Habit. More and more is it becoming remarked by observers that New Zeaianders are becoming leaners. We are "losing our independence, and look to others to prop us up. "It may be that we are becoming too dependent on Government control—if a cold east wind blows we are apt to telegraph the Prime Minister for shelter," remarked Mr D. Jones, M.P., in the course of his presidential address to the North Canterbury Farmers' .Union Provincial Conference. That "Is well put, Mr Jones. In the lean old days what did our pioneer settlers do about it? They stood four-square to all the winds of adversity.

Queen NJary as Reformer. It is cabled that at the first ceremonial Court held at Buckingham Palace since the war Queen Mary prohibited the wearing of feathers and long trains. One of these reforms indicates that Her Majesty has taken practical notice of the agitation which has been earned on for years by €ka Royal Society for Protection of Birds, which this year secured the passage through the -House o£ Lords of a Bill prohibiting the importation into Britain of the plumage of* wild birds. There was a strong campaign, against the wearing of plumage-beamed on in tho London papers, and examples were quoted of the senseless slaughter encouraged. For instance, it is the nuptial feathers of egrets in which the traders deal, arid this means that the feathers have to be torn from tho mother bird while the young are still in the nests. The young birds are left to die in their thousands, Canon Rawnsley says that on the average 150,000 albatrosses are similarly left to die of hemorrhage every year.. Feathers are very fashionable, but the Queen will not allow them at her courts. How long before her influence has its effect?

The Mana of Milner. A double from that of its influential company of Londoners present—was paid to Sir Thomas Mackenzie in the farewell dinner given to mark his exit from the office of High Commissioner for New Zealand. In the first place, special permission was given to hold the function in the historic Mansion House, sacred to London's most exclusive official affairs, and, secondly, Lord Milner was secured' as chairman. He is one of the forces behind Lloyd George, and many of his admirers look upon the ex-journalist (he wa.s a sub-editor under Henry Stead) as ti coming Prime Minister. Ho made history in India, also, ill Egypt, and has just returned from another epochr marking mission in the Land of the Pharoahs. To-day he is Secretary 'for the Colonies, and is a real and forceful Imperialist, who' has knocked the Downing .Street shackles off the Overseas Dominions. And he has risen superior to the latter-day jibes of his political enemies. And certainly his family records and his birth certificate's evidence is against him. For Lord Milner was born in Bonn, Germany. His father was Dr. Milner, and his mother was the daughter of MajorGeneral Ready, some time Governor of the Isle of Man. Dr. Milner's father was an Englishman, who settled in Germany and married a German woman, and their son, Dr. Milner (father of Lord Milner) practised as a physician in Loudon, and became later Reader in English at Tubingen University in Germany. Lord Milner was educated first at Tubingen, then ;it King's College, London, and at Oxford. His clear-cufc, comprehensive tributes from the Mansion House chair to Sir Thomas Mackenzie were well deserved, for the latter was the best booster of New Zealand that wo have had in London since Sir Julius vogel was our Agent-General.