Companion of Honour

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 342, 11 January 1946, Page 5

Companion of Honour

King on Mr. Fraser is first of all a personal tribute, It means that in the opinion of His Majesty’s advisers Mr. Fraser’s personal contribution during the war, his wisdom, and courage, and vision, were of conspicuous service to our nation and our cause. Therefore it is appropriate that Mr. Fraser should join Mr, Churchill and Field-Marshal Smuts in the small and select company of Companions of Honour. But it is also a tribute to New Zealand, to Mr. Fraser our Prime Minister as well as to Mr. Fraser, loyal, tough, and enlightened subject of the King. It is of course possible to have courage without sagacity, and sagacity without stoutness and courage, and if one or the other of those categories had been Mr. Fraser's he might still have rendered useful service. Everybody renders useful service in war who contributes what he can, whether he is a leader or a follower, and when we are all in the ditch together it is better to be grateful for what anybody does do to help than to complain of what he could or should do, In other words leadership in war must be positive and not negative, and this honour has come to New Zealand because our leadership throughout was on the one hand aggressive and fearless and on the other hand blind to the things that at the time did not matter. It would be humbug to say that Mr. Fraser was always popular; or always patient; or always right. Always is a hard word when it has to be stretched out to six years. But there is no risk in saying that Mr. Fraser was always bold, always strong, always unshakably determined to endure to the end, and we must not forget that he was always in possession of the most depressing facts. The confidence of ignorance is one thing, the courage of knowledge another, and, the King has. honoured the second thing and not the first. honeur conferred by the