THE BEST SOLDIERS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 11, 8 October 1943, Page 6

THE BEST SOLDIERS

A Canadian’s Tribute <Bv Telegraph.—Press Assn.— Copyrignt.) (Special Correspondent.) LONDON, October 6. Mr. L. W. Brockington, K.C., who recently visited New Zealand, in a broadcast address on the- eve of his return to Canada, told the story of a conversation with two American war correspondents, who asked him to name “the world’s best soldiers.” . “Trying to be generous and lair as a man from Canada would wish ro be, said Mr. Brockington, “and remembering the number of V.C.’s and the grand fighting record of the smallest and most distant. of the Dominions, I said ’Well, perhaps New Zealand.’ “The American war correspondents leapt on me like a, couple of British Columbian bobcats. ‘Nobody’s got anything on the British,’ they said, and beiore I could say a word the Mississippi was in flood.” Mr. Brockington also said: I know vou sometimes worry a bit about this Commonwealth. Let me read you par: o£ a cable I received from Ave in ninon. It was sent by one of New Zealand s most gifted sons. I think he speans for all men of good will. ‘lf our speech is changing under the impact of the Americans, and our manners under, the influence of the camp, we are neither depressed nor afraid; nor are we a degree less members of the British Commonwealth. We know that if America bad, not saved us al (he Coral Sea we might today have been learning Japanese. D e realize that if uo one had thought or lcnd-leiic-e. we should have been estimating our debts in dollars, feo we arc grateful—l hope for ever —to the nation whose long arm saved us. But we know who saved the world in 1940, and London and Coventry still light our path.