THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1924. THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18891, 13 December 1924, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1924. THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL.

The new Governor-General returns to New Zealand to-day. He makes Ids firsL acquaintance with the Dominion as Governor-General, but by a happy chain of circumstances he is returning to a country in which some mouths of his boyhood were spent. Sir Charles Fergusson has been called to an office held by his father in the days when New Zealand was in its infancy as a British country. Many things have changed since then. The world has made much progress, and the people of New Zealand pride themselves

on having kept pace so far as con-

ditions have permitted. Further, they claim that in some directions they have given the lead instead of waiting for it to be given them. One thing remains unchanged. New Zealanders as a people siil] maintain the tradition of unswerving

loyalty to the Empire and undimin

ished affection for the Throne, For that reason alone the new Gover-nor-General will be welcomed by a community ready to accord him, without question, the homage due to the direct and personal link between the Dominion and His Majesty the King. That, however, is an impersonal feeling and attitude. A Aery much warmer regard has been vouchsafed most incumbents of the office Sir Charles is to fill. There are many threads already discerniblo which promise to unite in forming a strong bond between the people of New Zealand and the new Governor-General. The I office has just been vacated by a I holder whose distinguished career and rich endowment of personal gifts won for him an especially high place in the affections of all New Zealanders. It makes the gap he leaves the more difficult to fib, but there is in the circumstance a valuable advantage to the newcomer. Lord Jellicoe's term has so raised the office of Governor-General in popular esteem, has invested it with so many pleasant memories, that actually Sir Charles Fergusson assumes his duties under happy auspices. If there is much to live up to, there in nothing to live down.

After a sailor with a lifetime spent in the service of the Empire at sea, comes a soldier with a career, almost as comprehensive, in

the land forces. The bare outline of Sir Charles Fcrgusson's military record shows that an ample share of the arduous side of a soldiers life fell to hii lot. He made his reputation as a young officer in that part of the world where Lord Kitchener's greatest work was done. Service in Egypt and the Sudan, in the days when Sir Charles Fergusson was there as a regimental officer, was full enough of peril and hardship to test the quality of any soldier. Having subdued the territory, the not duty of the army was to administer it, and educate it in the ways of peace. Success or failure in this more exacting duty depended in a very special degree upon the men railed to the responsible posts immediately following the cessation of hostilities. A. long record of peaceful and prosperous development in the Sudan testifies to the care and devotion to its best interests displayed by those early administrators. Among them was Sir Charles Fergusson, who filled an important office there during the most critical years of transition from barbarity and turmoil to peace and civilisation. Following that period, he held various positions of increasing responsibility in the Home command. The outbreak of war found him still on the; active list. so that he crossed to France with the first Expeditionary Force and commanded a division at Mons. Thereafter he took a distinguished part in the grim drama played out in France and Flanders during the next four years. The upshot of all this is that the new CovernnrGeneral has had both a career

meriting admiration wherever the British flag flies, and an experience of men and events well calculated to develop that breadth of outlook, soundness of judgment and certainty of touch required to bring success in tho office to which h»> has been appointed. New Zealand has been wonderfully fortunate in her successive Governors. That good fortuno still continues.

The question of selecting a Governor-General from within the country has been raised at infrequent intervals. It has never been sustained because the weight of argument against it is too great. A very happy coincidence attends the appointment of Sir Charles Fergusson, however. He and his family have direct and long-standing associations with New Zealand. It has been remarked already that the Governor-General, the son of a former Governor, has been in the country before Lady Fergusson is the daughter of another Governor of years ago, the Earl of Glasgow. His brother, Sir James Fergusson, married a New Zealand lady. The accumulation of associations is surely unique in the history of the office. If furnishes grounds for tho Gov-ernor-General and his family to be • unusually interested in the country where they will spend the next few years. It should give an added degree of warmth, also, to 'he welcome due to him and his because OJc the position they are to occupy and because of the great service he has already done the Empire. The first instalment of that welcome is to be tendered in Wellington to-day. Though only a few of the people of New Zealand can participate, behind it there will he the united goodwill of the whole community. From the known facts 01 his career, and from his published utterances since his appointment, it is easy and safe to predict that Sir Charles Fergusson will be a Governor-General who will speedily win for himself an assured place among the people with whom he is to be associated as holder of the highest office in the land. There are many pleasant circumstances pointing that way, not the least of them being that he is returning again to a country which was his ence before for a brief period of adoption.