GREAT STATESMAN’S WORK RECALLED

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 119, 10 August 1927, Page 8

GREAT STATESMAN’S WORK RECALLED

CANNING CENTENARY i DIED A HUNDRED YEARS AGO (British Official Wireless.— Copyright) RUGBY, Monday. To-day is the hundredth anniversary of the death of George Canning, who was British Foreign Secretary from 1822 to 1827, and Prime Minister for four months before his death. The newspapers recall that when Canning became Foreign Minister he was confronted with conditions in the world, after the Napoleonic wars, which were not dissimilar from those of recent times. All the problems and the unrest which arose out of the Napoleonic wars complicated international policy. To steer a steady course amid the currents and rocks needed both vision and strength, and Canning revealed himself as a great Foreign Minister.

As the “Times” remarks, to describe Canning's policy would be to write a history of the chief events and movements of those years, both in the Old World and the New. Lord Castlereagh, who had preceded him at the Foreign Office, saw before he died that Britain could not remain as a partner in alliance with those Continental Governments which aimed at the suppression by arms of the popular movements which began to break out over Europe shortly after the fall of Napoleon. Canning walked in Castlereagh’s footsteps. In developing and applying his views he did much to foster in the world the? idea of nationality, for which the French revolution and Napoleon had prepared the way, and which his own disciple, Lord Palmerston, adopted with less reserve. Canning’s recognition of the Span-ish-American Republics was one of his most important strokes of policy. —A. and N.Z.

Car Driver Not To Blame. —An inquest was held yesterday concerning the death of George Judd, who was killed through a collision with a motorcar on Monday while cycling to Masterton. The coroner returned a verdict of ar-cidental death, adding that the driver of the car had taken all reasonable precautions.—Press Association,

THIS WONDERFUL COUNTRY “In this wonderful young country; this virile nation-in-the-making, glad in the lusty strength of its splendidly happy, supremely healthy, and very wealthy pepole !” Then we leave the platitudinous politician to it, and study some of the figures concerning our robust manhood and womanhood. And we find that we are so infernally healthy and wealthy that during 1926 there were 68,391 patients treated in the public hospitals, which is equal to 484 to every 10,000 of population, while there are 10,456 inmates of benevolent and orphan asylums. And we are evidently becoming much healthier, because the figures for 1922 showed only 51,159' patients treated, equal to 392 out of every 10,000. The “Abstract of Statistics” adds this illuminating information; “These figures relate only to indoor patients, and If there he added the number of outdoor patients treated by public hospitals (66,000), the number of patients treated in private hospitals, and those persons receiving medical treatment in their own homes, it will be found that at least one in every ten persons was under treatment during the year.’ And these figures do not include the large number of minor complaints from which people suffered. But for the fact that even doctors are liable to become ill. New Zealand would be an absolute paradise for the medical profession.