“HEAVEN’S LIGHT"

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 658, 9 May 1929, Page 9

“HEAVEN’S LIGHT"

PORTSMOUTH ADOPTS MOTTO Portsmouth Council has decided on a motto for the city. It is “Heaven’s light our guide.” Alderman Sir Harold Pink said it appeared on the bows of the old Indian troopships that called at Portsmouth. Placed beneath the present crest, star and crescent, it would be very appropriate. Cr. J. E. Lane thought it would be just as appropriate to select as a motto, “The King, God bless him,” which appeared round the grog tub of the old troopships.

“Heaven's light our guide” is the motto of the Order of the Star of India™

SERVICE AT POINT HALSWELL Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of the death of the Right Honourable William Ferguson Massey, one of New Zealand’s greatest statesmen and folia years and 10 months Prime Minister of the Dominion. Members ofjhis old party, headed by the Right Hon. J. G. Coates, will assemble at his grave on Point Halswell, on the shores of Wellington Harbour, to-morrow, and a short memorial service will be held. For a little over 31 years Mr. Massey served the Dominion in Parliament from the time of his entry as the representative of the Waitemata electorate in 1594 until his death in 1925. For many years he was a prominent member of the Conservative Party, hut it was not until 1912, when Sir Joseph Ward and the Liberals were defeated on a no-confidence motion, that he came to the highest place of all. Within a year of his becoming Prime Minister he was faced with a crisis which gave him a chance to show what he : could do —the great strike of 1913 —and in the next year came the greatest of all crises-—the Great War. It is not so very many years ago, and many people will remember how Massey met it. His cable dispatched to the Home Government

perhaps best represents his attitude: “All we are and all we have are at the disposal of the Imperial Government for the purpose of carrying on the war to a successful issue.” That was his attitude all through the war, though he took care that New Zealand should receive fair treatment from the Imperial Government. When peace was signed at Versailles Mr. Massey signed the treaty as the representative of the first Dominion to become a party to such a document. His death on May 10, 1925, was an occasion of national mourning and a magnificent and fitting tribute to his life’s work was tha cortege, two miles long, which followed his coffin to the grave.