Ma-wai-hakona team members ready to take part in the pageant. Her Majesty the Queen inspects the guard of honours from HMNZS Waikato. want to see flourish within the Commonwealth family and spread to all peoples of the world. ‘Mr Prime Minister—New Zealand will have an increasingly important part to play in the Pacific and in world affairs. But her voice will only be heard if it comes from a strong and united people, conscious and proud of their Nationhood. ‘You have reminded us that it was twenty-two years ago today that I became Queen of New Zealand. It is also today, on the first New Zealand Day, that I have personally approved an Act of Parliament amending my Style and Title in this country to place New Zealand before all my other realms and territories. I have been particularly glad to do this because The Crown is a symbol of national identity and national unity. May it help you all to live together in peace and prosperity in the years to come.’ In his speech of welcome, the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. N. Kirk, referred to the signing. 134 years before, of the treaty which became ‘the foundation stone of our nation.’ In choosing the anniversary of this treaty as ‘New Zealand Day’, he asked, ‘Do we all realise the special meaning of this choice? Some other nations celebrate on their national day an act of violence, a revolution, a coup, a war. But we achieved our nationhood gradually, peacefully. We have no desperate revolution as the focus of our national day. We remember no martyrs who fought to overthrow a tyrant or to drive out an alien power. We were the lucky country. Independence was handed to us on a plate in the most friendly, gentlemanly, rational fashion. We came to nationhood with no heavy legacy of bitterness, with no old scores to pay off. ‘True, Maori and Pakeha came to blows. But there was valour, and honour, and restraint on both sides. We emerged from this testing period with respect for each other. We were born in peace. And so we commemorate as New Zealand Day not an act of violence but an act of trust, a pledge of co-operation. This is part of our national inheritance. We must not forget it.’