THE TERRITORIALS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVIII, Issue XLVIII, 21 May 1914, Page 5

THE TERRITORIALS

GENERAL SIR lAN HAMILTON AT NEW PLYMOUTH.

REPLY TO TOKIO MESSAGE

(United Phess Association.)

NEW PLYMOUTH, May 20. General Sir 'lan Hamilton and staff, after inspecting the review of Senior Cadets, were ente'rtained at dinner. Ihe General afterwards visited the veterans function, where, in a speech in reply to his toast, he said that he was pleased with the work of the cadets or-Taranaki, and New Zealand generally. Touching incidentally on South Africa two years a;'o. he said the war helped to sweep away the old racial bitterness, which ■would- never return.' The .Boers, who formerly avoided Natal as being purely British, visited it frequently now as a seaside resort. In a speech this morning he referred to the recent cable from Tokio concernin t his reported remarks at Auckland that the Pacific would be the possible battleground for Asiatics and Europeans. He said he was unfortunate in incurring the displeasure of certain organs of the press of an allied Power ; but the report on which their displeasure was based must have been spiced in crossing the tropics. He had merely put a hypothetical case, which seemed sound in theory, to the effect that as nations grew'bigger wars would be less frequent, but more terrible. He could" imagine the period when empires would comprise great continents, and 6uch a continental empire might have to face a contest of arms or economics, and he had said New Zealand- would do well to be prepared, and was preparing for the millenium or Armageddon in view. He said he had given no foundation for the ruinour,-that he would condemn the Territorial system as published in the Napier press. No report would escape him till he had his boot on the gangway of the 'boat which took him from New Zealand.