AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 106, 11 January 1915, Page 3

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

SPEECH BY N.S.W. ATTORNEYGENERAL. WELLINGTON, Jan. 8. Replying to speeches of welcome by the Mayor, Prime Minister and others, at a civic reception tendered him yesterday, the Hon. D. R. Hall, New South Wales Attorney-General, said that in Australia they felt a very keen interest in the work going on in the Dominion, and they felt that the interests of the two countries were in- 1 deed one. What brought it home to him was the cable he had received from Mr. Massey, asking for 100,000 . bushels of wheat. Mr. Massey: Which you agreed to send. (Laughter and applause.) < Mr. Hall: And very glad to do so. ; He hoped, he said, the connection would be closer still. (Applause). In i regard to the question of the Australian Navy, he was glad that the resolution taken five years ago, when he > himself was in the Federal Parliament, had turned out to be the right one, and he was glad that the opinion in New Zealand appeared to agree with this view. Five years ago, it was very difficult to say what the future would bring forth, and it was very gratifying, when the arguments' on both sides were so strong, and it was at least an open question that they had done the right thing. (Applause), It was fine, too, continued Mr. Hall, to know the peoples of Australia and New Zealand were ope together with the Empire in the great struggle, on the result of which depended so largely the fate of the Empire. If the struggle had to come, he was glad it had come now, when all the Allies were united, and the whole of our own people united, rather than at a time when we might have been disunited among ourselves, and with Allies disunited. There was no war on record in which the people of the whole Britis filiation, in every quarter of the globe, were so unanimous, so wholly resolved to see it through, come what might. The democracy of the British Empire knew that the continuance of its existence would be incompatible with the triumph of German militarism. They were one to see this thing through to the bitter end, and, whatever the sacrifice might be, it must be met, and would be met until the menace of militarism was re-movc-dj. (Applause). !“Ow soldiers j ,wib fight-together,” said Mr. Hall, "and I suppose they will be buried together, some of them, unless there is some unforseen end to the war, on the mil of Europe, and may it be, if our ■ men do fall, on the soil of Germany, on the way to Berlin. But we all hope 'he Mine rill come when the ships will 51 back home with our men, and i Australians and New Zealanders see • together from the decks the first . glimpse of the Southern Cross hanging ) in the southern skies, and know they L are approaching the Commonwealth or i the Dominion they love so well. For i us who remain the duty is to make - this Empire worth living for and i worth dying for.” (Applause). / —;