GENERAL SIR HECTOR MACDONALD.

Southland Times, Issue 15075, 22 October 1901, Page 2

GENERAL SIR HECTOR MACDONALD.

In the ordinary course of the extended tour which he is now making General Sir Hector Macdonald will land at the Bluff this morning and will visit Invercargill. Invereargill sometimes feels the disadvantages of being situated at the end of the island, but that position has its advantages also. Of one of the greatest of these we are sensible to-day. We shall have the privilege of welcoming to the shores of New Zealand one of the Empire's most distinguished soldiers. Our position on this occasion yields us an opportunity which every other town in the colony would leap to embrace if there was the slightest) promise of success. But all others must be content to stand by and wait their turn, and in the meantime Invercargill may congratulate itself upon its good fortune in being the extremity of this part of the earth. And we feel sure that the people of this town are keenly alive to the value of the right and the privilege which is theirs. They know the man who comes to them in the person of General Macdonald. We write " General Macdonald, " but we are not sure that the people like best to think of him as " General Macdonald." It is more probable that the man they are eager to meet is not Major-General Sir Hector Macdonald, X.0.8., and a string of letters, but Macdonald of Afghanistan, Macdonald Bey of the Soudan, or " Fighting Mac" of South Africa. It is these names that recall all the deeds and scene's, the incidents and adventures, that make Sir Hector the most rugged and picturesque figure in the British Army. The story of his career is well known ; it has been often told. It was excellently sketched by the Rev. J. A. Luxford in the columns of this journal a day or two back, and probably it has been read in many a household in anticipation of the visit of its hero. So we need not repeat what is familiar to all. We shall suit the occasion bettep by singling out what we take to be the central fact in the story which makes General Macdonald peculiarly a man whom it is a delight to honour. That fact is concisely expressed in one sentence: "He rose from the ranks." By the strength and force of his heart and brain Sir Hector Macdonald has raised himself from the lowest rung of the ladder to one of the highest. All that he is and has he owes to himself alone. He achieved position and fame himself } not with the aid of circumstances but in spite of circumstances. Between the point from which he started and that which he has now reached there were insuperable obstacles — he surmounted them himself. When he began to rise he was confronted by tests of character and trials of ability that would have crushed, we shall not say a weak man, but a man less strong than himself. In most cases they would have brought defeat, in his oase they brought honour. And when the tide of danger and responsi-

bility passed, leaving him with success ia his hand, Sir Hector Macdonald endured the last and severest test of all. Fame, " that lasb infirmity of noble mind," could not change him, or turn his head. So far as the world knows the Major-General, with his breast covered with the decorations of rank and war, is the same Hector Macdonald who entered the ranks of the Gordon Highlanders an obscure private thirty years ago. That characteristic reveals the real greatness of the man — it is the crown to his honour. General Macdonald in this | respect takes a niohe in " the | Pantheon of the raind " on the same level with the most heroic generals °^ the American Civil War. It is, perhaps, his strange, eventful life, his deeds as as a Boldier and his feats as a leader that captivate the romantic and chivalrous side of our natures, but it is the qualities of heart and intellect, the dignity, strength, endurance and un< changing humility and manliness behind the deeds which appeal to our reason and imagination alike, and guide us to a true estimate of the man whom we are to honour to-day. His great achievements have been written and rewritten in newspapers and books till they are become a well worn talo. His greatest achievement is that he is superior to success, and it is written only in his own character. General Macdonald will receive a warm and enthusiastic welcome from the people of luvercargili, who are sincerely proud of the honour and privilege of greeting him as a visitor to New Zealand, and when they have entertained him so far as their opportunities permit, they will aay goodbyo with the hope that Sir Hector will enjoy his visit to this colony, and find that relaxation and reinvigoration of which he has come in search.