THE COLONIAL OFFICE.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 February 1921, Page 5

THE COLONIAL OFFICE.

MESSAGE FROM NEW SECRETARY. URGENT EMPIRE PROBLEMS. Sy Telegraph.—Press Association. Greymouth, Last Night. Mr. Massey, at a public welcome tonight, read the following telegram from the Governor-General: I have to-day received the following telegram from Mr. Winston Churchill: “The following message is for your Prime Minister:— ‘I have to-day received tfrom His Majesty the seals of the Colonial Office, and as my first act in my new capacity, I desire to send you my most cordial greetings, and to express the earnest hope that in close co-operation with yourself and other statesmen of the oversea Dominions, I may be successful in drawing still closer the bonds that unite us and contribute to the solution of the urgent problems of the Empire with which we are now confronted. I look forward to meeting you in June.—(Signed) Winston Churchill?” Mt. Massey stated he had forwarded a reply as follows: “I have received your Excellency’s telegram forwarding a message from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and I shall be grateful if you will be so good as to transmit from me the following reply: T thank you most heartily for your kind message transmitted through His Excellency the Governor-General. In reply I desire to express to you, upon your assumption of the seals of the Colonial Office, the congratulations of the Government and people of New Zealand, and to reciprocate very warmly the cor. dial greetings contained in your telegram. I shall at all times be most pleased, along with other representatives of the self-governing Dominions, to join with you in everything which will make stronger the ties uniting the countries of the Empire more closely together, and also in assisting to the best of my ability to solve the many serious problems which it is necessary to deal with, not only at the sittings of the Imperial Conference, but also during the periods between the meetings of the Empire’s representatives in London. I convey to you the good wishes of New Zealand in your new and important office.—W. F. Massey.’”