DOCTOR OF LAWS

Hokitika Guardian, 9 January 1931, Page 3

DOCTOR OF LAWS

MR FORBES’S NEW HONOUR

LETTER FROM SIR JAMES BARRIE.

LONDON, November 27. After hearing the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh and being entertained at a civic luncheon, the three .Dominion Prime Ministers—Mr R. B. Bennett, Mr J. H. Scullin, and Mr G. W. Forbes —proceeded to the Old College of the University where they were made 'honorary graduates. The choice of the Upper Library for the conferring of the degree of Doctor of Laws/ is in accordance with custom on such special occasions, but it was referred to by the Ghancelloi, Sii James M. Barrie, in a letter which was read by Principal Sir Thomas Ho - land, who, as Vice-Chancellor, took Sir James Barrie’s place and conferred the degrees. ! Sir James Barrie wrote: “I wish very' much that I could be n ith you all on Wednesday to join in honouring the three Prime Ministers of such great distinction —Mr* Bennett, Mi Scullin, and Mr Forbes. With y°u I should certainly have been, in defiance of most engagements, but, as it happens, there is an important meeting here on Wednesday afternoon, connected with Children’s Hospital, at which I must atteud. I 1 suppose it is a ‘record’ mir three are. obtaining from Edinburgh—her Freedom and her honorary LL.D., degree on the one day. If any of them can think of anything else in our power to give that can compare with these honours, my advice is that they should ’have it also. I wish I had the ‘capping’ of them in the. Upper Library Hall, though you will do it hotter. Do not jet them out, of that room until they

have admitted that neither Canada, Australia, nor New Zealand, nor anyone else has such a beautiful academic hall—their ball now as well as others.” Professor James Mackintosh. Dean of the Faculty of Laws, called upon to present the graduants, said that Edinburgh was an old " University, and the city was older still. Ycf both were young enough in spirit to rejoice in that, opportunity of honouring the i Prime Ministers' of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, not merely in right • of their offibe, hut for the manner of 1 men they had proved themselves to j he. The three great Dominions which they represented were specially near I and dear to Scottish hearts because [ they were so largely settled bv ninn- ! eers from their Highlands and Lowlands that they thought of them as , a Magna Scotia—another Scotland be- ' yond the seas. Among the many ties of sentiment and interest that united them, none was more characteristic tlinn the pronounced faith they all had in the virtues of education, and the common type of institution they had evolved for the advancement of the higher learning.

From that a. double benefit accrued to the University ; she attracted a constant flow of studious Dominion youth j to take ad van tape of her training, and ! sho found a ready market for her finished article in those lands of boundless opportunities. Long might that | much-valued preference in intellectual goods continue, and ever larger might the quota of imports and exports crow' The latest figures showed that 072 of i ’their students (roughly one-sixth of the whole number) came from homes I outside the British Isles including 40 ' from Canada, and 21 each from Australia and New Zealand, they thus -held the first place among the Universities of Britain under the heading “students from abroad.” It need hardly he stressed that an institution of so cosmopolitan a character, consecrated to the studies that united and unfitted mankind, had a. real contribution to make to the building up of the Umpire and the fostering of peace and goodwill among the nations.