HOW "TOMMY" STRUCK THE NEW ZEALANDER.

Lake County Press, Issue 975, 15 August 1901, Page 5

HOW "TOMMY" STRUCK THE NEW ZEALANDER.

It will be remembered that, at the request of Mr Seddon, the Imperial representative corps which went out from England to represent the mothercountry at the inauguration of the Australian Commonwealth visited New Zealand. To the current number of the " Empire Review" Mr J. F. M. Fraser contributes an account of the visit to Dunedin, and of the impression which the soldiers produced upon the colonists. Here is an extract : "We have had an opportunity of knowing Tommy Aitkina, and I think many of us feel saddened by the knowledge. To us many of them appeared as simple as childreD, narrowed by rigorous discipline, and their individuality lost in compulsary reliance on the will of others. They feel bitterly that their status is not recognised—that they are excluded from many functions and places open to their social equals if civilians, and all the cheering and shouting they get when they have come through a tight corner does not restore this loss of selfrespect. As fighting machines they have no superior the world over, but we in the Colonies would, I think, reach nearly the same pitch of perfection, and yet leave some individuality in the man. If England's standard is too low surely she can raise it, and complete in the labor market for the best article the Empire can afford—and when obtained, improve it by every possible means." It need hardly be said that, in the opinion of this writer, the visit was an '•unqualified success," and that the soldiers everywhere "behaved witli admirable propriety.