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Hokitika Guardian, 20 June 1924, Page 2

.MorxT ICvkkkst. 20.000. ft.. cantinues to offer the supreme test to British courage iu the effort to scale its heights. Onee attain the expeditionary party has been forced back after attaining a height- of 23,000 feet and enduring fifty-six degrees of frost. The latest effort was not without its special features of trial, calling for the highest courage and resource on the part of the climbers, ft appears four of the porters in retracing their difficult steps when the party was forced hack, lost their nerve and decided to remain at the precarious height to await their fate. But the British members of the party returned to succour the marooned ones, and despite the difficulties brought them down from their point of vigil, evidently more dead than alive. Prohnhlv this incident which was recorded through the cabled news was but one of many precarious experiences through which the party passed, ft is easy to conceive that at the height attained, and in the wild weather experienced, the members would be undergoing a constant tost of courage nod fortitude.

They would know from the recorded experiences of previous parties that tlio exploration was not any picnic outing, and would have steeled themselves for the ordeal to lie faced. F.verest will continue to call, doubtless, and men will he found ready to respond and display the highest impersonal courage in the effort to conquer nature in her mast exclusive posit inn. There has been the same spirit over many years in the visits to the Arctic and Antarctic regions, where there hits been magnificent heroism shown in the task of overcoming the difficult natural conditions which nature presents in such remote quarters id the globe, ft is good for the nice that such spirit is extant. It is the highest form of race heroism, and is an assurance that the spirit of our fathers is with us to-day as indefatigable and its glorious in action as in the Inave days of old which are the charm of our traditional history, counting most of all for our pride of race.

It is being revealed from time to time that the Midland Hailway is gradually tilling the destiny expected of the arterial means of communication east and west. The advocates for the railway could not have had much doubt on that que.stiun for their advocacy lor the completion of the line over decades of yeais, was so petsisteut. Still, there was always a section more or less influential who. shaking their heads, and looking wise, were very |essimistie about the financial outcome of the great undertaking. Hut the developing trade is justifying the work of the optimists. Apart from iho pleasing statements made at the recent meeting of the Kailway Committee of the Caiitei bury Progress l.eaglie, there are indications through the shipping that the railway is now drawing the hulk of the trade. From a railway point of view the line is catering very successfully for the trade between the two Coasts, and no doubt Canterbury business people and producers are feeling the benefit of the very convenient direct connection which the railway affords. living part and parcel of the South Island railway system, it need occasion no surprise that the railway has more than emulated the shipping trade. That was a natural result because transit by rail is so ready and direct compared with the round about I'ourney of the shipping. Dunedin business neople have been complaining about tlie loss of Coast trade, but this has been chiclly where the traders prefer to use shipping transport to the railway. There is a simple way of recovering trade lost by that means. Tt is evident, and has been all along, that the bulk of the primary produce required for the Coast must come by rail, whence it can be forwarded direct from the producer or the mill to the point of consumption. The national facilities which the line offers must make it the chief means of transport and by that means the railway will come into its own and justify itself.