CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 December 1916, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

NO FAVORITES, BUT ) Commenting on the arrival of the distinguished Xew Zealanders (Mr. Massey and Sir Joseph Ward), 'the Pall Mail Gazette remarked; "They nave already experienced something of the welcome awaiting them, but they have yet to discover the real wnrmt.ii of (lie Mother Country's feelings toward) the most remote of the Empire's outposts. There are no favorites in the Imperial family, lint if there were we should require long odds against the standing of the Dominion which .Mr. Massey and Sir Joseph Ward so happily represent. There is a quiet spontancousness in Xew Zealand's acts which has always aroused our admiration and gratitude.. She sent her sons to the Boer War at the first hint of need, and the outbreak of the Great War found her big contingents awaiting the signal to embark. The epic of Ciailipoli proved again and again her heroism and sclf-saerilieing devotion to the cause of the higher civilisation, and the presence of the Anzacs at the supreme points of danger on the Western front show the ideal coupling of tenacity with courage and selflessness with conviction. Xew Zealand embodies the new spirit of progress at its best and worthiest. If it were possible for this old country to transform itself into a new country of pioneers the island Dominion, with its prowl but hot self-advertising ideals, would be accepted by the majority of us as the model. Perhaps we hear in it the clearest echo of the British spirit, and possibly it disdains less than others sonit of the foibles which can so easily be made to look like faults. But whatever the reason, Great Britain's tie with Xew Zealand is so fast on this side that the Imperial visitors will luive a stirring tale to tell when thev return."