THE Pukekohe and Waiuku Times PUBLISHED TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER, 21, 1914 LORD ROBERTS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 3, Issue 250, 24 November 1914, Page 2

THE Pukekohe and Waiuku Times PUBLISHED TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER, 21, 1914

LORD ROBERTS.

"We nothing extenuate, nor net down auaht in malice

The grief we must all feel at the death of the distinguished soldier who had been fjr tart; years the idol not merely of the Britlih Army but of th: Empire, the national hero who, with perhaps the exception of the immortal Nelson, sat enthroned above all in the hearts of his countrymen, is to a certain ext3nt alleviated by the fact that he died, as be would have nished, in harness. During a visit to the North of France to greet some of our ncvly-arrived Indian troops he succumbed to an attack of pneumonia, and England lost her greatest and be't-loved son, if not actually upon the field of battle, yet almost, it miy b> said, in the face ot the enemy. "Bobs" as he was universally affectionately termed, was for so lorg a foremost figure in our national life that it seems difficult to think of the Empire without him. Slight in person and insignificant in stature, he was yet possessed of an indomitable energy, and at an age when most men have retired from active life he was not onlv able to conduct brilliantly ao arduous campaign in South Africa, but to continue from then till the day of his death the still more arduous and, alas, fruitless campaign against his counlrv's incredible supineness in the matter of universal military training. During his last few months of lite, h'jwtver, he must have felt happy in the knowledge that th: nation admitted the wisdom of his efforts, and to be assured that after this war England would never again leave her young man

ignorant of the knowledge of how to d-fend their Motherland. In New Zealand the late Lord Roberts frit a deep interest, attracted oo doubt in great degree by the way in which we led the Empire in adopting compulsory training. To the last he kept up a correspondence with people in this country on his favourite subject, and was always delightd to get any information upon the working of our Defence system with which to persuade the indifferent British public. In a letter to a local resident not very long ago he said he had nut given up the idea of visiting the Dominion and observing for himself; and, old as he was, it he could once see his favourite scheme in a fair way of being adopted at Home he would undertake the