CHOOSING A FLAG.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10139, 9 December 1910, Page 7

CHOOSING A FLAG.

Many interesting suggestions for a flag for United South Africa were submitted in response to a recent invitation. Naturally there were numbers of enthusiastic persons ready with designs depicting typical birds or animals, frequently highly idealised. Amongst these good folk the ostrich, the elephant, and the springbok were in high favour; but as tho men to whom the selection had been left had 110 desire that tho flag of the State should bs mistaken for a replica of a mediaeval lance pennant, or the battle standard of an Asiatic pirate, , these designs were returned, courtes ously- but definitely. The greatest difficulty that beset the competitors, and, indeed, the judges themselves, was the selecting of suitable emblems. The boutlTern Cro<"s was already in use. The anchor, the chain, the diamond, and the plough were all used in various designs. None of them found favour with the selectors. Finally, three of the four judges had 110 trouble in choosing a flag witha plain blue field, exhibiting the British Ensign in the left upper corner, and, emblazoned across the field, a device lin the likeness of a comet with a I four-pointed nucleus —symbolic of the four colonies —witli a "tail" of orange, green, blue, and scailet bands. It is said that the judges based their award on the fact that the design excelled the others in or- 1 iginality, whilst containing an equal ) recognition of all the provinces and | marking the year of Union indelibly. I Two of the adjudicators suggested as impossible improvements • the substitution of a red ground for the blue in the accepted design, and the adoption of white and dark blue as the colours representing Cape Colony and Natal respectively, 'as their badges are on grounds of these colours. These suggestions, however, did not affect their award. The fourth judgft dissented from the finding of his colleagues, because tho comet was a mere ephemeral thing, constituting a bad omen for tho continuation of a Union that an Empire has prayed might be an everlasting one. This man would have preferred the anchor as a symbol, connecting tne States, as he stated in a minority report, with "its sea origin, being the emblem of the oldest colony, from which all South Africa grew; 111 itself a happy and beautiful symbol." As an alternative, he favoured "a coat-of-arms quartering single emblems or the various States, ratiier than uniting the present arms of the provinces, though he himself prepared a chain oifour links, in which a fifth link might be inserted upon the inclusion of Rhodesia in the Union." It waN, k'wevev, pointed out that an anchor, to all the maritime world, denoted a dockyard. So this design was laid { aside with the rest.