Honoured By Royalty But Kept It Secret

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 12, 5 April 1927, Page 1

Honoured By Royalty But Kept It Secret

NATIVE MINISTER’S SECRETARY RECEIVES DECORATION Service to Maori Race (From Our Resident Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Monday. For 18 years Mr. H. R. H. Balnevis, private secretary to the Minister for Native Affairs, has been behind the scenes. For 18 years he has been the chief motive power which has kept the Government administration of the native race operating smoothly. But he can no longer remain behind the scenes. The most jealously guarded secret will eventually find outlet for expression, and even the walls of Parliamentary Buildings will give up their most treasured confidences. It has just leaked out, and is as yet only whispered in the lobbies, that the popular “Bal,” whose creditable record of service was so splendidly enhanced by his control of the spectacular Maori reception to the Luke and Duchess at Rotorua, was the recipient of the Member of the Victorian Order, sth Degree, at Royal hands before H.M.S. Renown left the Bluff for Australia recently. None, except a few close friends and those privileged to attend the official function on the ship, knew of this recognition of a good work well earned out, and Mr. Balnevis himself appeared disappointed rather than elated when THE SUN man singled him out for personal inquiry. “I had hoped to keep it quiet,” he confessed. This is characteristic. Few people in the outside world know much of the work which goes on within the walls of Mr. Balnevis’s office in the old building. But his colleagues, with whom he is immensely popular, appreciate the value of his work, and are gratified at his distinction. There is not much about the Maori race that would be new to Mr. Balnevis, whose 18 years in the secretaryship has kept him in intimate contact with the native people. He is a son of Colonel Balnevis, AdjutantGeneral of the Colonial Forces during the Maori wars, stationed at Auckland, and claims membership of the NgatiKahungunu and Ngati-Porou tribes. Native research he finds intensely absorbing and he is secretary to the Maori Ethnological Society, and also to the Maori Purposes Fund Control Board, as well as sitting on the Council of the Polynesian Society. The name Balnevis, when mentioned in Wellington, is immediately associated with golf, for the portly figure of H.R.H. figures prominently on the Miramar Golf Links whenever he has spare moments from his many duties. He occupies a seat on the N.Z. Golf Council, and returns a creditable card j for the 18 holes.