BIRTHDAY HONOURS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23059, 9 June 1938, Page 12

BIRTHDAY HONOURS

Once again public and humanitarian service within the Dominion has been fittingly acknowledged in the honours conferred on the occasion of the official celebration of His Majesty's birthday. There is no trace of political awards in the list published to-day, but men and women who have won distinction in science and the arts, in social services and in technical achievement, have been selected for further distinction. Two knighthoods are included and both are eminently deserved. No one could possibly cavil at the honour bestowed on Sir Theodore Rigg at the New Year, but the knighthood now conferred on Professor Easterfield, his immediate predecessor as director of the Cawthron Institute, shows that the superb pioneering work of the latter in laying the foundations for agricultural research in New Zealand was only temporarily overlooked. The other knighthood is of especial interest to Auckland, although its recipient, Sir Albert Ellis, is a man of such retiring modesty that comparatively few people know of his life of adventure and his discovery of two modern Treasure Islands. His part in divining and developing the phosphate deposits at Nauru and Ocean Island has given an invaluable source of supply to the fertiliser industry, with untold benefits in the productivity of the Dominion's farmlands. Among the other names in the list, those of Mr. It. O. Gross, the Auckland sculptor, and Mrs. Elizabeth Kelly, the Christchurch portrait painter, show that effort in the arts does not lack official recognition. It is gratifying, too, to note that the services of such a competent departmental head as Mr. John Wood have been appreciated. In the direction of Public Works activities during the last two years, he has faced a complex and onerous task with that quiet efficiency which so often goes unrewarded. The remaining honours have been distributed among civil servants, past and present, and social workers in accordance with unexceptionable precedent.