THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOOTHERS CROSS. SATURDAY DECEMBER 1906. SIR JOHN GORST'S PRAISES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13355, 8 December 1906, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOOTHERS CROSS. SATURDAY DECEMBER 1906. SIR JOHN GORST'S PRAISES.

It is only at long intervals that a colony such as ours can have the opportunity of hearing what impression is made by its growth and development upon a statesman who revisits it after the lapse', of many years. Such an opportunity was ours in Auckland yesterday, when Sir John Gorst, who left us in the 60's, was officially welcomed to the chief town of the province with i which his name will always be associated. Our visitor was kind j enough to say that he has frequently asked himself during his visit: " Why did I ever go away P and we may well say, in all sincerity, that when he went away New Zealand lost a most able colonist and most devoted public servant. But we can also say with pride that our loss was the. Empire's gain, and that his years of service in the "Waikaio and the sympathetic insight thus attained into the hearts of men* aided him in that breadth of view and shrewdness of judgment which have been so well employed in the service of the great Empire of which our New Zealand is only a small part. Few itien, have Worn the harness of an active life with more honour than Sir John Gorst, and still fewer have seen such varied service. On the Waikato when it was a, guarded frontier and at the Berlin Labour Conference, in the India Office and in the Imperial Treasury and on the British Council of Education, as an official of the House of Commons and rector of Glasgow University and member for Cambridge University, Sir John has in his time played many leading parts and played them all well. It is such training of men of capacity which provides for England that reserve of leaders which, in time of national peril, will come forward to save her, and this is so important to us all that we j cannot grudge the loss to this colony j of one. who went from us to continue ; elsc'where a great and honourable

career. New Zealand ' has always been happy in winning and keeping the affection of every loyal Englishman who once became personally intimate with her life, a quality in which she seems to differ from her neighbour Australia. The Commonwealth and its component States have frequently suffered at Home from the gross misrepresentation and abuse which come from personal animosity ; but we in New Zealand have no fault to find''with any critics from whom we have a right to expect a good word. Strangely enough, we have even had to protest against that loving exaggeration of our colonial advantages which may tend to mislead intending immigrants. To good Mr. Reeves, for instance, our winters appear as English springs, and the man who steps ashore on our strands has nothing more to ask of good fortune. So it does not surprise us that Sir John Gorst has kindly thoughts of ' our land and kindly words for ourselves, and we are quite sure that he will go back to England with even -warmer feelings than those with which he came. But we make bold to think that his generous commendations are not wholly inspired, by friendship, and that his long work among the great places and the great problems of the world have qualified him as a judge of peoples and countries. Certainly his record as Civil Commissioner in the Waikato and in those much higher posts which he has so frequently filled since, is that of a man who would not hesitate to say what he thought if it were for our good. It is almost as rash to accept unreservedly the praises of! friends as the gifts of the Greeks, but within reason we may possibly accept the pleasant things which Sir John Gorst is able to Bay to us. At least they show that 40 years of absence have not blurred the charm that New Zealand lays upon all Old Country men;

And the good that he finds to say shows also that he enters, into the spirit of our' development, that in his great educational work in England and in the sympathies which led to his appointment as British delegate to the Berlin Labour Conference, he did not forget the teachings of this new land. It is not its material progress which impresses him, but its national development; not the mere results of soil and climate, but the work of a loyal and patriotic people, loyal in their adhesion to the Empire, patriotic in their determination to make New Zealand a happier and better England. And he tells us—greatest of praise—that nowhere else had he seen such a fine set of boys and girls as in our New Zealand schools. And what better result could Ave hope for? Though we had all the gold of the Rand and all the diamonds of Rimberley, with Chinamen and Kaffirs, they would be worthless beside our simpler industries and . the healthy British children who overflow our schools* are 'many.

points in which our New Zealand children on the average are not altogether what wo would have them?; they might have' better teeth and better eyes and still deeper chests and stronger musch>s. and might be] better trained in morals and in maul hers, as well as in the use of wig rifle. But these improvements raa| come with time, and meanwhile, one of the great experts, in education tells us that physically they are t|c finest that he has seen. And the reasons he knows as we all knnft*: sufficient air for one thing, but most of all sufficient food. If there is one thing more than another of which we may be rightly proud, it is that from the North Cape; to the Bluff no child goes hungry with node to help it and. if we do our duty to our country, never shall. And the greatest shame on the Mother Country to-day is that while millions are wasted in demoralising luxury, freeborn English children pine ana Stunt for sheer lack of food. There is in this no question of Socialism* or Individualism, but of common human it v towards the helpless and .suffering, of common pride in the great nation to which-we belong. And if Sir John Gorst could lake them at Home a message from New Zealand, in which all classes and 111 parties and all creeds could unite, it would be that England should think less of the fantastical privileges she has accorded to foreigners (and aliens and think more of the inherent right to a decent, raising of| every child born of English blood. For not only to long-dead Cornelia [were strong children the most precious of jewels. They are still the most precious possession of every nation on earth. For with them the poorest State may look confidently to the future, while without them the richest State goes irrevocably to its doom.