The Star. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 1888.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume X, Issue 1841, 30 January 1888, Page 2

The Star. (PUBLISHED DAILY .) MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 1888.

SIR H. A. ATKINSON.

Men of all political parties will join in congratulating Major Atkinson on his knighthood. Opinions may differ as to the system under which decorations are granted and their accordance with the democratic principles which happily prevail in these colonies, but it being the custom for the Sovereign to reward the services of colonial public men by titular distinction, the knighthood of Major Atkinson will not come as a surprise. The cause for surprise rather is that he should have been so long passed over. Comparisons are odious, and no more need be said on that point. Our purpose on the present occasion is to congratulate " the Major," as he will always be called, on his accession to this new dignity, and to express the hope that he may long live to enjoy the honor conferred on him. He may rest in confidence that in the opinion of the people few of New Zealand's already long list of capable public men have better deserved it. In the days of old when the colonists' life was harder than it is to-day none bore his burden of the work more cheerfully, when there was duty to be done in the protection of colonists' lives and homes none faced dangers and difficulties with more cool intrepidity or better judgment, and when it became his turn to ewter the councils of State none wai found more honourable and trustworthy. His career has been creditable to himself and the colony in which he has served, and the addition of his name to the roll of St. Michael and St. George confers honour upon the order itself as well as upon the new knight.