DOMINION DAY.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2786, 27 September 1910, Page 4

DOMINION DAY.

GLORIFICATION OF " OUR NOBLE SELVES."

The most practical minded men have inexplicable little fads of their own, and Sir Joseph Ward is no exception to the rule. These eccentricities should be treated as tenderly as possible, but we feel bound to tell the Prime Minister that his rather pathetic attempt to galvanise " Dominion Day " into permanent vitality as a national institution is likely to prove unsuccessful. When New Zealand threw off the supposed inferiority attaching to the status of a " colony," and became a " Dominion," it was right enough to clebrato the occasion with due ceremonies , but for the life of us we cannot see why the celebration should be an annual affair. At best it represents a glorification of " Our Noble Selves," and we are not at all sure that this is a worthy ideal to place before the young people of New Zealand. The fact is that the " God's own country" business has been considerably overdone ; and it might be urged, with something more than plausibility, that a clear sense of relative values, and consequently of our own comparative insignificance, is the national want at the present time,

r-ther thin any artificial encouragement of our insular self-importance. Be this as it may, we are strongly of opinion that Sir Joseph Ward's pet festival possesses no vital sentiment strong enough to justify its permanent, inclusion in the national calendar, and we hope (though not very confidently) that before the Public Holidays Bill makes its appearance the Government will have realisad this fact.—' Evening Star.'