The Hokitika Guardian WEDNESDAY MARCH 21. 1923. A GREAT AMBASSADOR.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 March 1923, Page 2

The Hokitika Guardian WEDNESDAY MARCH 21. 1923. A GREAT AMBASSADOR.

Tiiosk who have lit-hl tin- ambassadorship of the I’nited States in CJiont Britain during the hundred and fifty years or thereabouts in which diplomatic relations have been sustained between tintwo countries. have been almost invariably efficient, honourable, am) often really great men. They have been men who have carried out their duties with credit to themselves, with prolit to their own country, anti with the respect of the country to which they have been accredited. To-day a perusal of “The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page,’’ a biography in two volumes by Buxton •L Hendrick, which lias just been published goes far to prove, says an exchange, that tlio man who represented his country in London during the critical years of the Great War must also he given a, place in the very forefront of American ambassadors. Groat opportunities were given to him, nnd great responsibilities—greater assuredly than had been offered to, or shouldered by, any of bis predecessors; nnd the evidence is now before us to prove that Mr Page- handled opportunities and responsibilities alike with certitude and tact nnd amazing lesonrcefulness. The work of his office, and the incessant strain of it, and its high demands, killed him; he returned to his native land to die, as certain a casualty of the war, ns his biographer asserts, as anv combatant who fell before a German bullet. Throughout the four years of bis ambassadorial service he proved himself a staunch and powerful friend to Britain and the Allied cause, and though, before his country came into the war he preserved unerringly the neutrality of word and deed that his office demanded, his letters to his President and colleagues now show how consistently that neutrality irked him. how greatly he felt the justness of our cause, and lmw keenly anxious he was that America should recognise it, too. Before all, and above all, a lover of his own land, a man deeply imbued ' with the conviction that America was the first, the best nnd the greatest country of them all, a country to work for, to live for, and if need be proudly to die for, be laboured in season and out of it for her cause, her name and her honour. But the dearest wisli of his heart, to the realisation of which it is evident ho literally dedicated his life, was the. alliance of his nation with ours in an (English-speaking federation, which he well believed might dominate the world in justice and in peace. That such a partnership could do what Page claimed for it, and aspired to sec it do, is apparent; that such a partnership is imminent, or even feasible, may be matter for argument, but cannot cease to be a golden hope; and that in such a partnership tlie dead ambassador should deem his own country to be most fitted for the senior place—primus inter pares- is hut to grant him to he the patriot and good [American his whole fine life has proved. The story of that life, as related by his biographer in these volumes is the story of a greatly-gifted man—though neither in foitune m r family considerably so—-advancing steadily to the honours which his character and parts demanded, and inevitably won. ft was along the path of journalism that Walter Page trod to fame, with somewhat blisterelf feet at first, but won with ease and swiftness, until be ultimately acquired the blue ribbon of bis profession in the editorship of “The Atlantic Monthly,’’ that great journal within the arms of whose chief chair so many famous men of letters had sat before him. It was while journeying to this proud eminence that he met—while he and they alike were toiling in obscurity—the future President, who was to grant him his ambassadorship and that- future President’s own future confidant, Colonel House, whoso name during the last ten years has been so familiar in the mouths of all of us. The embassy in London is the greatest diplomatic office in the gift of the President, and when it was offered to, and accepted by Page, both men honoured themselves in the transaction. The new ambassador took tip his duties in May, 1013, and carried them on until October 1918. when, a dying man. reluctant even then to “seem to shirk his job.” he was hurried home to hear the good news of the Armistice and pass into the Great Silence before the year was out.