The Press TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 1946. Governor-General

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24904, 18 June 1946, Page 4

The Press TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 1946. Governor-General

In his address welcoming his Excellency the Governor-General, Sir Bernard Freyberg, and Lady Freyberg, yesterday, the Prime Minister did not merely speak in the name of the Government and the people of New Zealand; he found the words to say what politicians and citizens, in a general accord, have wanted to be said. His Excellency is indeed welcome as the personal representative of the Throne and of the unity, in freedom and responsibility, of the Commonwealth over which it is set. His appointment is welcome, as was that which gave him the command of New Zealand’s oversea army, for reasons rooted in earlier service of the Dominion and the Empire; and they are strengthened by the gratitude and admiration which his recent command won. But there is, and it is right that there should be, a special warmth and spontaneity in the welcome offered to one who, like his Excellency, is welcomed home. All this the Prime Minister said, so well that it is almost an impertinence to paraphrase him; but it can be none to add that, if he admirably expressed thoughts and feelings shared throughout New Zealand, he directed them beyond the occasion to a purpose. Mr Fraser assured his Excellency that he will find in the Dominion a nation bent upon fulfilling, with the people of Britain and the Empire as a whole, the common tasks of material reconstruction and of the service of liberty, democracy, and civilisation. It was an assurance that a people united in welcoming his Excellency could be united in working with him and under his leadership; and it was an assurance which New Zealanders may pause to consider in solemn earnest and resolve to justify. His Excellency’s reply was a response to it. His farewell to arms, he said, was no farewell to work. He had come to New Zealand to labour in his office—in “ difficult times for “those in high position.” Difficulties, indeed, abound; there is no want of signs that they may grow gi eater and more numerous before tranquil prospects open; and’ there has never been a need more real for the resolve, restraint, patience, forbearance, unselfishness, and good humour in which the true unity of a people becomes effective and triumphs. Pursuing it and achieving it, New Zealand will make his Excellency’s term of office what all wish it to be, as the Prime Minister said, beneficial and profitable to the nation, and a happy one for their Excellencies.