THE NATIONAL SPIRIT.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 2, 27 September 1907, Page 4

THE NATIONAL SPIRIT.

Those who openly doubted the reality of the appeal which the new dignity of our country would make to the people received in yesterday's enthusiasm a reply which has surely convinced them that tho national sentiment of New Zealand has tho sensitiveness of a very living thing. The Premier was, perhaps, partially wrong when he diagnosed sraalinc?s and smalhi ess of idea in tho;-e who based -an objection to the new designation of New Zealand on the smallness of the country and the magnitude of the label. Those objectors were a minority of the people, and al-

though thgif attitude was in part clue to a want of " vision," it was probably due as. nutdl to a kind of morbid caution, a want of the faith that moves mountains. What the average citizen thought was clear to anyone who could feel, beneath yesterday's £ay_ a pulse of real national' feeling. Unless there had been in tho public mind a recognition of the meaning of it all, the public would not have responded so splendidly to the touch of official arrangement. The capital city of the Dominion is to be congratulated, first, upon the good fortune that nHowed every arrangement to be carried out in the best possible condi;ions, and, secondly, upon having ijiven itself so willingly to the achievement of a memorable festival. And while congratulations are in order, their due share must be tendered to those who arranged the various functions, to those who took part in them, and especially for their very good speeches to His Excellency the Governor and Sir Joseph Ward. Human nature is frail, and a constant living-up to the ideals —so easy to frame and so hard to follow— is not to he expected while man is not yet. made perfect. But as no man can ever be raised to a high level of thought without being thereafter endowed with its capacities, so the.-national spirit, made thus sharply self-conscious, can embrace the more readily and determinedly any . proposal of a large national duty. We were glad to see that the Premier last night re-af Brined the policy which in New Zealand knows no such thing as party—the aspiration' to preserve this Dominion as the home of a white society. Sincerity in this or any important national matter is expressible, without any rash action or precipitate change, but the coun-try-will gladly welcome from the Executive of the day—is, indeed, hungry for —a care for defence that will be really keen and warm-blooded. Of the quickening of the national pulse there has been given abundant proof in the spirit of yesterday's gatherings. We, indeed, had a species of personal. assurance that the Dominion means something large to the citizen, for the sales of the issue in which we introduced The Dominion to the public involve figures so surprisingly in .advance of all Wellington—and, we believe, New Zealand—records that modesty finds the explanation of them, not in our newspaper merits, Imt in the coincidence of our name with the idea uppermost in the public mind. Eor us Dominion Day was not all a day of clear blue —there were difficulties! But the light heart remains, as tinpatriot wishes it to remain for our country, as we all'together stoop down, the halt over,, to shoulder our burdens and resume the journey—onward and upward.