WAITAKI HIGH SCHOOL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19774, 16 April 1934, Page 8

WAITAKI HIGH SCHOOL

GIFTS FOR HALL OF MEMORIES

PRIME MINISTER HANDS THEM OVER By Telegraph—Press Association OAMARU, April 14. This afternoon the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes) and Mrs Forbes paid a visit to the Waitaki Boys’ High School, the object of Mr Forbes’s visit being to present to the school the Canadian flag which had been hung on the cenotaph at Toronto, which had been entrusted to Mr Forbes by the acting mayor of that city to be placed in the Waitaki Hall of Memories. A welcome was extended to the visitors by Dr. A. Douglas (chairman of the Waitaki Board of Governors), who called on the Prime Minister also to present other historic flags recently given to the school, namely, the South African flag sent by General Smuts (Prime Minister of the Union), a Union Jack flown over Government House at Canberra, sent by Sir Hugh Denison through the British Empire Society, the pennant cf Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston (commander of the 29th Division at Gallipoli) , who wrote that the pennant was a symbol of the spirit of the whole division, a spirit that he hoped would pass to the boys of Waitaki. In fulfilling the task entrusted to him by the acting mayor of Toronto, Mr Forbes said that when receiving the flag he regarded it as a very fine gesture from Canada in taking the flag from the cenotaph at Toronto. Jn all British countries there was nothing more sacred than the cenotaph which was looked upon with deep reverence. It had been his privilege to accompany the Prime Ministers of the other Dominions at the ceremony at the Whitehall Cenotaph in 1930. Similar ceremonies were observed in New Zealand on Anzac J ay, also in the other Dominions, which was emblematic of the feeling of the whole Empire. Mr Forbes paid a tribute to work carried out by the Rector of Waitaki (Mr Frank Milner) in gathering these mementos from various points of the Empire, adding that Mr Milner had a reputation for scholarship, leadership and character, and boys coming under his control had every chance hi making good in life. Mr Forbes handed over the Canadian and other flags mentioned, which were accepted by Dr Douglas, who said that they would be treasured always. He hoped that they would help to teach ideals of imperial citizenship.