GREETINGS TO NEW ZEALAND

Taranaki Daily News, 30 August 1916, Page 4

GREETINGS TO NEW ZEALAND

FROM PANAMA. The Star-Herald, published at Panama, in its issue of July 14, has the following:— The regular passage of the splendid steamers of the New Zealand Una through the Canal, an event which we chronicled in our news columns some time ago, naturally causes some interest in that remarkable colony of Great Bri< tain in the Antipodes of the Orient. The great off-shoot of the expanding Caucasian race which settled England and thence spread to the remote four corners of the globe, never found a fairer land anywhere, in its wanderings than that they inherited from their Dutch cousins when they fell heir to the noble island the Hollanders had called New Zealand. The agent of the New Zealand line oai the Isthmus, Captain Fcnton, has on hit tables in his office in the Masonic Temple in Colon the files of the Auckland Weekly News, a magnificently illustrated paper, whose wonderful pictures of tta scenery of the island are truly a revelation. It would seem as if that country must be. blessed by nature as few others on earth. Splendid fertile plains, noble snow-clad mountains, vast forests, a climate at once equable, varied, and energising—the wonder is that any man could ever leave it. Of course it is known that progressive sociology has 'Seen enacted into organid law in New' Zealand to an extent hardly equalled anywhere. It is commonly called the "laud of equal opportunity." It will be interesting for us to learn 'from New Zealandera as they pass by more about what these laws are and how they; operate. These steamers, passing, one way and the other about every fortnight, make'tis realise how truly we are the meetingground of the ends of the earth, Our hills gladden the eyes of the and passengers on their long voyage across more than half the earth. Here they see the results of the energy of two colonising races, one of them a branch of their own, the other the descendants of those who long disputed with them the dominion over land and sea, but who now welcome them to tho hemisphere of peace. We all in these regions have the same spirit of the bold pioneers that made New Zealand what it is. We are brother frontiersmen. We know how liberty feels. We welcome the link that the new steamier route affords us with that stout colony of the South Seas. We bid those hardy men bail, in their great industrial progress, in their wonderful sociological development, in their having "a place in the sun." We are neighbors in a new sense now, and we arc glad of it. As time goes on, Panama hopes to make all these neighbors feel that thev may enjoy "the freedom of the city" when they visit us, and make themselves at home.