The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1013. A LOST LEADER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 226, 12 February 1913, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1013. A LOST LEADER.

d Wo have grown .so used to the intrepid explorers who have lieen exploiting the Frozen South for the last decade returning in safety after their periodical exiles in the Antarctic, that the news that Captain Scott and live of his most experienced comrade* in the work of - polar exploration have lost their lives comes as a severe shock to the whole of the Dominion. Xcw Zealand has been the base of the last three Antarctic expeditions, and this has brought us into such intimate touch with these hardy explorers that many nf them have become personal friends and have merged , their identity as 'adventurers" in that L of their personality. Losing the sense of perspective in a realisation of this, the whole country is sorrowing to-day, , not so much at the partial failure ot I the expedition to win through without 7 accident, as at the tragic death of a band of brave fellow- who bad endeared ( themselves to hundreds through sheer i charm of individuality. There are not ' wanting people who are disposed to ridi- . eule expeditions such as that undertaken I by Captain Scott a< being utterly impracticable in our "sorry scheme of 1 things,'' and as serving no good purI pose. We have even heard this parJ lieular expedition referred to as "a picnic," in those terms of dispar-

agement which only the man who can \ s sit comfortably at home with his feet ] upon the fender lias the audacity to use. People who speak in terms such as these i appear to overlook the fact that it is 1 simply the spirit which prompted Scott ' and his fellow heroes to attack the ' mysteries of the frozen south that has i made the British nation what it is. The < Motherland could never have bred such I - a hardy race of children in all the quar- ' ( ters of the globe had her people not \ ventured forth in the face of dangers J and trials to lift the veil of nature in ' her hidden temples throughout the ' world. Fresh worlds to conquer has al- i ways been a notable British ideal, and '< with a realisation that "some work of ! noble note may yet be done," she has sent her sons time after time across the trackless seas and through the impenetrable forests in search of those fresh lands. Like Ulysses, Scott and his hardy ■mariners, "who ever with a frolic welcome took the thunder and the sunshine,'' set forth opposing "brave hearts, free foreheads" to the dangers of the bleak, dark, sullen south, seeking only to add fresh laurels to the Empire's glorious crown. This they have done, though they laid down their lives in the doing, and the whole world is the richer for their martyrdom. The expedition was not undertaken in any spirit of bravado or derring-do, for the average layman can hardly be expected to appraise at their value the scientific ro>sults that attach to thesis bold assaults upon the hidden fastnesses of nature. But the hydrographer and the zoologist and the biologist and the geographer know and appreciate them. These men I were the original tamers of the winds, ; rulers of the ocean, riders of the storm j and the prophets and guardians of our commerce at sea and on land. This is not the time for any appraisement of the immense practical and commercial value of their work. We are more concerned with the national spirit that drove them cheerfully into those wild wastes where they met their death. "Xot for a handful of silver they left us, i Not for a riband to stick in their coats," but stirred by that unrest of travel which always had for its objective the upholding of the nation's ideals and the traditions of its race. Nor have they failed. The story of the expedition is told in detail elsewhere. We know that Scott reached the Pole. He triumphed, though nature did not long delay her vengeance. Xor is his death all sadness. As Nelson died, he and his brave fellows died almost in- the hour of their triumph, and though.they sleep I where probably no man shall ever again find them, cradled in a black wilderness of eternal snows, their names will live for ever in British history- Fate seldom fails to put in the high lights in her tragedies, nor has she missed on this occasion, for. pitiable as the calamity is, it is made doubly pitiable by the knowledge that the wife of this gallant explorer is even now speeding through the warm blue waters of the Pacific to meet her husband, unconscious that ..he lies buried for ever in the desolate frozen wastes of the Far South. There he and his noble comrades must be left but not forgotten, for when the first sad shock is over the Muse will surely dip her pen in golden sunshine, and write their names high with those of other heroes of the race upon the walls of the long corridors of death.