THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, MAY 26, 1903. THE VETERANS' HOME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12280, 26 May 1903, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, MAY 26, 1903. THE VETERANS' HOME.

Yesterday His Excellency the Governor laid at the Three Kings the foundation-stone of the eminently practical and appropriate "national memorial to those who fell in the service of the Empire during the South African war, 1899-1902." Although situated on the isthmus of Auckland, and to that extent associated with our city, we should be the last to forget that in the raising of this Veterans' Home every city and province in the two islands is taking an equal part. That our fellow colonists throughout the length and breadth of these fair islands should have so cordially and unanimously agreed on the site which has been chosen and should have so generously joined together in erecting here a " national memorial," which will last as long as New Zealand is a nation, declares that the ca\ise il commemorates and the noble work it is designed for triumphs over every parochial, provincial and insular prejudice. It recalls to us those stirring days of common danger and national upheaval when the men of the South came to help the men of the North and the soldiers of the Queen brought succour and safety to Auckland and Taranaki. And those so recent days —whose fallen heroes this Home memorialises—when Dunedin and Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland, with Greymouth, Wanganui, Napier, Nelson and every other city, town and hamlet and every outlying farm, rivalled each other only in sacrifice and strove not to take most, but to give most. So that it is in the fullest sense a " national memorial," reminding us of occasions in which provincialism \vw no part, of the dead who died for all of us' of the blood brotherhood that is between all of us, and of our common duty to the wide Empire which keeps [ the peace not only in New Zealand, ' but wherever the British are. It, I reminds us of things worth thinking ! of by smoothing the sunset path ol j those who, citizen among us—in any j of the sister provinces—have ven-' tureel their lives in the same great i

cause as those have given life foi ! whom we now raise monument o: brick and .stone. But apart from the declared dedi cation of the Veterans' Home, it wil ever be associated in the thoughts and words of the people of New Zea land with the Governor whose name is fittingly inscribed on the founda-tion-stone. As the Mayor of Auckland correctly stated yesterday, thai stone would not have been laid yesterday had it not "been for Lord Ranfurly. This institution will be none the less a national monument to the heroic dead, a national benefaction to the deserving veteran, because it is also a national tribute to the influence of a Governor whom the colony has learned to respect and tc J honour for his own personal qualities ! as well as for the commission that ;he bears. The devotion with which i he has pleaded the cause of the old | soldier and the frankness with which !he has insisted that even in this ; young colony men' who have fought \ for their country, and ours, already need that honourable consideration | which blesseth him that give 3 as well I as him that takes, have persuaded I willing listeners to take Time by the ! forelock and to establish now a " hospital" which, in the ordinary course of things, would hardly have been thought of until crying evila forced us to attend. That the heart of the colony is sound on the question the response to Lord Ranfurly's appeal is convincing proof. That he was sound in his contention the number of applications for admission which he has received assures us. But without his influence and guidance the work would have been one for future years, and the method would hardly have been that for which we may now anticipate success because of the intense sympathy which inspired His Excellency's most practical proposal. Whatever we may call it, it is, and always will be, the Ranfurly Home, as much connected with his regime and character as the architype hospital of Chelsea is with that of Mary of Orange. For the long years passed by him in our midst, years of unpretentious kindliness and unwearying public spirit, have made him looked upon as our friend, as well as our Governor, from one end of the colony to the other. So that when he set his heart upon a Veterans' Home, and preached the need for it as ardently as ever Peter the Hermit preached a crusade, he spoke to a colony which would have done much in any cause to please him and which will certainly fulfil all his expectations in a cause so obviously its own. Difficulties melted before him as they would have before no other man among us. He combined the whole colony in this good work and all unintentionally has raised to himself a memorial the national character of which is in keeping with the respect the whole colony bears him. The foundation-stone of the Home Is laid. The building and furnishing is provided for. But only £2000 is available as a maintenance fund, whereas £9000 is required to place the institution upon a sound basis. Need we say that this amount ought to be speedily forthcoming in order that our national memorial to those who fell in the service of the Empire" need not be robbed of completeness by the management being crippled and hampered through perpetual shortness of cash 1 It would be unworthy of the colony if, after iloing so much, it should hesitate shout finishing the scheme in a satisfactory and businesslike manner. It is true that we have a colonial habit of discounting the future ind of leaving to coming years and coming generations the task; of proriding for our obligations. But we lo not do this in purposes- which are near and dear to us, in matters which are felt as personal rather than as public concerns. Nor should we do it in this matter of the Veterans' Home, which has double and treble reason for being personally dear to every New Zealander who realises that he is as he is only because when need arises there arise also armed hosts around him to shield him and his with their lives. We have peace in our streets and safety on our farms because men answer to the bugle, without knowing why, and hold at all hazards the long frontier that is ever bending before invasion and ever being stiffened with men's lives and men's limbs—on the Ganges or on the Waikato or on the Tugela. Not only the few whom the Veterans' Home will directly help are gainers by it, but the many who know that it would help them, if they had required it, and the people at large— and young, rich and poor—who thus are told that when a man serves ! i--country in the field he is neither forgotten in death nor neglected in his helpless years.