WARM WELCOME

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26746, 15 April 1948, Page 6

WARM WELCOME

LORD AND LADY BEVERIDGE MAYORAL RECEPTION Lord and Lady Beveridge were the guests of the Mayor and Mayoress Mr and Mrs Cameron, at a reception in the mayoral rooms yesterday morning. The guests included the Very Rev. Dr D. C. Herron, Chancellor of the Otago University, members of the University Council, city councillors and local members of Parliament. Introducing Lord and Lady Beveridge, the Mayor said that they had come to Dunedin as the guests of the Otago University Council, and he assured them that the University occupied a very honoured place in the community. A welcome on behalf of the city was extended by Cr T. K. S. Sidey, who paid a tribute to the distinguished visitors for their close connection with university affairs. Lord Beveridge had achieved world fame in economics and was an economist in the proper sense. The speaker added that they desired also to express their appreciation of Lord Beveridge’s wonderful work in social service, because they claimed that the Dominion itself had also made great advances in social and humanitarian work. Application of Ideals Mr P. G. Connolly, M.P., said that the provision of employment, social security, better housing and town planning were ideals for which Lord Beveridge had worked so hard in recent years. “If we are going to go the British way, the only way of gaining the new order,” Mr Connolly added, “then those ideals must be put into application.” Greater than these, however, was Lord Beveridge’s advocacy of world peace, the speaker concluded, for without it they could not have that happiness which was the objective of everyone. Lord Beveridge remarked how deeply touched he • was by the kindness of everyone in what he described as the “best place in New Zealand.” He thanked the University of Otago for asking them to Dunedin, and said he should like to bless the memory of the great benefactor who made it possible. Fundamental Outlook “I do think there is a fundamental outlook in New Zealand and Britain, and I believe it is that we are all so centrally minded because we are so near to one another,” Lord Beveridge continued. He added humourously that on the eve of a general election the parties called one another criminals and suggested that their opponents should be in prison, but after the elections they all worked together.

Lord Beveridge recalled that when he was appmnted in 1908 by Mr Winston Churchill to investigate questions of unemployment, the people who had told Mr Churchill “to get that boy Beveridge ” were Sydney and Beatrice Webb, and they were not Conservatives.

The speaker also referred to his two years as a leader writer on the Morning Post. This, he said, was an extremely conservative paper, and he was a radical, almost a Socialist, but he never wrote anything he did not agree with, he never nadl a word crossed out, and he wrote what he thought about social reform. Desire for World Security

Although he declared that he would like to spend not one month but six mqnths in New Zealand, Lord Beveridge said that his two main interests which prevented him from doing so at present were housing and town planning and his concern as to how they could abolish war because he believed that the most important thing was to make the world safe for small nations. Social Security, housing and town planning, and planning for the future of their children were of no avail if there was to be war. “Although you are remote from the world,” he concluded, “you will never be remote from war because you are with us.” Lady Beveridge expressed her appreciation of the kindness and hospitality that had been extended to iford Beveridge and herself. Dr Herron concluded the function by expressing on behalf of those present the debt of fratitude they owed to Lord and Lady leveridge for coming to New Zealand.