SENSE OF NATIONHOOD

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 91, 14 October 1932, Page 5

SENSE OF NATIONHOOD

GREATER DEVELOPMENT

TASK OF IMPERIALISM

The desirableness of a development of a greater sense of nationhood among the people of New Zealand and of pride for those who had made the' Dominion a great country was a subject upon which His. Excellency the Governor-General (Lord Bledisloe) touched at the conclusion of the oratory contest in the Town Hall last evening.

Lord Bledisloe reminded his audience that New Zealand possessed heroes and heroines, whom at any rate posterity would record as illuminating New Zealand history. If that was bo, surely the time had arrived when there should be a greater effort to cultivate among all sections of the community a greater sense of nationhood, and, with it, pride in those who had made the country the great country it was and the greater country it was destined to be. His Excellency' said he mentioned this sense of nationhood because he was convinced that until it was developed to its fullest' extent and greater pride was felt toward those who had made the nation what it was New Zealand would not play a really'effective and convincing part in the more serious task of Imperialism. .

"Without that solidarity and sense of nationhood," said His Excellency, "New Zealand, or, indeed, any other nation that goes to form the British Commonwealth of Nations, can never pull her full weight in the great Imperial task that lies before this country as one of the great selfgoverning units of the mighty British Empire."