AS OTHERS SEE US.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 21 May 1928, Page 4

AS OTHERS SEE US.

f ' A MUCH-TRAVELLED VISITOR. THE EMPIRE SPIRIT IN HAWERA i i ' J Miss Y. M. Herbert-Smith, who has been spending a few days in Hawera . in the course of a world tour undertaken with the purpose of obtaining first-hand knowledge of the Empire, left to-day tor Wellington. Yesterday she visited Dawson's Falls and though visibility was poor and she was unable to see the snow-clad peak, she enjoyed her visit to beauty spots in the bush on the lower levels. She hopes, she told a “Star” reporter, to pay another visit to the mountain before leaving for India and Palestine in August. Asked what "were her impressions of New Zealand and of South Taranaki in particular, Miss Herbert-Smith became enthusiastic. “It is net very often that we see ourselves as others see us, nor do We very often hear trutlnully about ourselves unless the dead have ears. However, I want to tell you how I, an inconspicuous woman from Home, see you,” she said. ‘ ‘Hawera from now on will be referred to by me the rest of the world over as one of the most precious gems of the Empire, tor is it not within your town boundaries that twelve years ago, when the war was still raging, that the idea of the British goods for British people, the buy British goods slogan was inaugurated? Yes, if what history relates be true, you people here did f.re the first shot in a totally different kind of war, the war of Empire commerce which is the only way to attain peace. Now I find that Hawera not being content with such a mighty pie.e of work is the birthplace again for a yet more stupendous piece of work for world peace—l mean Mr Hooker’s school children’s letter writing scheme. I have read to-day many letters just arrived ■ and the children have, as the saying gees, cottoned on. Hawera has hit the peace nail right on the head. But may I now be permitted to say a word" or. two in de eme of the Homeland? If you find that tbe different schemes . which you seem to have a genius for creating do not meet with enthusiasm at Home don’t, be downhearted. Remember, the closer you live to Nature the more you learn her secrets, the more long sighted you become, whereas the larger the city, the more congested the town in ,tlie Homeland, the more warped the outlook and the more the ‘too good to be true’ fatalism grows on one, “The people at Home are keen on the Empire though I admit they have a decidedly chilly way of showing it, but I know them for I am one of them, and you will suddenly find that when the sleeping bulldog awakes you will have your correct place in the sun. Until then give ns at Home the benefit of the doubt and rest assured that I, in my quiet way, shall remember with pride and pleasure my visit to Hawera of the Eimpii’e and that whenever I speak in public or to children Hawera will be remembered.”