WALTER H. PAGE,

Hokitika Guardian, 30 June 1922, Page 3

WALTER H. PAGE,

(N.Z. RefereeJ

History is always being written. If I were Archbishop, says one of the sporting writers, I would ask my clergy to load every Sunday some extract from the lattcrs to liis American friends of the late Walter H. Page, during the war, United States Ambassador in London. Likewise if I were Minister of Education I would have such extracts read every week in all the schools. This is from one letter Page wrote in 1 !)!.-> to his friend and partner in New York :

“All the old stories of bravery from Homer down are outdone every day by those people. It’s odd—l hear that it happens just now to he the fashion in the United States to say that the British are not doing their share. There never was a greater slander. They absolutely hold the Seven Sens. They have caught about 70 submarines

and some of them are now destroying German ships in the Baltic. They’ve sent to France by several times the largest army that any people ever sent over the sea. They are financing most of their Allies, and they have turned this whole island into gun and shell factories. They' made a great mistake at the 1 lardanelles. and they are slower than death to change their set methods. But no family in the land from char-coal-burners to Dukes, liesiEntes one moment to send its sons into the Army. When the news comes of tlieir death they never whimper. When you come right down to the hard facts, the courage and the endurance of the British and tho French excel anything ever before seen on this planet. T see these British at close range full dress and undress; and I’ve got to know a lot of ’em as well as we can ever come to know anybody after we get grown. There is simply no end to the silly sides of their character. But when the trial comes they don’t flinch ; and (oxo pt the thoroughbred American) there are no such men in the. world. A seven foot Kansas lawyer (Kansas all over hi in) came to see me yesterday. Ho came here a month ago on some legal business. He told me yesterday that

lie had always despised Englishmen. He’s seen a few with studhorse clothes and white spats and monocles on who had gone through Kansas to shoot in the lloeky .Mountains. He couldn't understand ’em, and he didn’t like ’em. •(•w) infernally uppish,’ said lie. ‘Well, wliat do you think of 'em now F ‘The very best people in the world,’ said lie. I think he lias a notion of enlist- ! '"at” , Another letter Air Rage—an American citizen and proud of it finished up Icy thanking God he came of the British race. That is wliat nine hundred and ninety lime out of eveiy L'loiisaml New Zealanders can do: and we ought to see that while they are getting their first schooling they learn why they should. Let them learn that they owe the sweet boon of life, and the possession of this most delightful of all countries in the world, to the bravery and devotion of innumerable Britons, ancestors of tlieir’s. men who hung on ten minutes longer than the other fellow and either Iretit him or died game ; women who sent their husbands and sons to war in the spirit of ancient Sparta, and had the worse part to endure. Let them realise that and they will go through life dignified hy the consciousness that, though we 'must die and he forgotten it is Enough if something from our hands have power To live, and act, and serve the future hour; And if, as tow’rd the silent tomb we a*, Through love, through hope. and faith’s transcendent dower, \Ye feel that we are greater than we know.