ENGLAND REMEMBERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 August 1921, Page 5

ENGLAND REMEMBERS.

NEW ZEALAND'S WAR SERVICE. LORD NORTHCLIFFE’S TRIBUTE. \ “THE GREATEST THING DONE.’’ I By Telegraph—Frew AssoJatlon. Auckland, Last Night. In a speech at a civic reception to'him to-day, Lord Northcliffe referred in warm, appreciative and obviously sincere terms to the services of the New Zealand soldiers in the war. Lord Northcliffe said he had been determined to come to New Zealand since his visit to the headquarters of the New Zealand Division in France, when it suffered very much more heavily than the newspapers were allowed to say at that time. Lord Northcliffe found the division, as he stated in a book he afterwards wrote, the model little army of the war. It was perfectly officered and perfectly equipped, and asked nobody for anything, but it consisted of young men who became conspicuous in Europe for their modest bearing and patience under suffering. Those at Home were most profoundly grateful for this contribution New Zealand gave—not merely for numbers (for the number was as many as could be but for the heartening thought and companionship of it. He remembered that the Italians asked the British to send troops to them, and they did so, not for the sake of numbers, but of companionship; and so it the New Zealand troops came. “But you were of us,” he added, “and that was a different thing.”

Lord Northcliffe went on to refer to the hell of August, September, October and November, 1914, when the nation was unprepared for war, and when he was nearly put in gaol for revealing the fact that our soldiers had no shells, when he was told it would let the Germans know, as if the Germans did not know before. When the New Zealand boys arrived they received a welcome which he would have liked those present to have beard. It would have done every mother in the hall good to see the welcome her boy got in Europe. On must not forget the nursing sisters, who took their place even in the firing line. We sometimes forget the great dangers of the medical service at war, but almost the most dangerous thing he did was to spend a day in a dressing station. It would have done all present good to know what New Zealand’s contribution did toward stimulating the people of Britain in the very great periods of depression they went through. “The greatest thing you have done for our King and our little country,” Lord Northcliffe concluded, “was the sending of your sweet and splendid boys, to France, arid I griev» that so many of them will never return.”