He departs with a creditable record of service for his State and the Empire, as member of the Imperial War Cabinet and as the New Zealand plenipotentiary at the Peace Conference. Those who are acquainted with Mr Massey's work in Paris will readily agree that few statesmen have rendered better service to the Empire.
His tenacity of purpose and sound common sense have often maintained British interests when it would have been easier to weaken on principle and accept less valuable results. That remarkable document, the report of the War Responsibilities Commission, bears the impress of his stern sense of justice and unswervable attachment to the Empire's cause.
It is in no small measure due to his statesmanlike acumen that Samoa will never again be controlled by a foreign power, and he has secured for New Zealand a share of the valuable phosphate island of Nauru, in the South Pacific. New Zealand and the Empire may be well satisfied with his work at the Peace Conference, and we wish him Godspeed.
Central Otago experimental farm
The saying that all things come to those who wait is happily to be verified in the establishment of a State experimental farm in Central Otago. The decision of the Government to establish such a farm at Galloway, and to carry out in Central Otago fresh experimental work in connection with the re-grassing of depleted areas, will be hailed with satisfaction.
The conditions under which agricultural farming is carried on in Central Otago are not reproduced in any other part of the dominion. This constitutes in itself a strong recommendation of the claims of the district to benefit by the activity of the Department of Agriculture in the establishment of experimental stations.
We are told by those in a position to judge that Otago could do infinitely better things with her acres if producers generally were better equipped in respect of up-to-date methods regarding the treatment of soils, pastures, and fodder plants.
It is to be hoped, therefore, that the State experimental farm which is to be established at Galloway will mark the inauguration of a new era in such matters in this provincial district, and that in respect to Central Otago in particular it will initiate the systematic exploitation of the agricultural, as well as the pastoral, capabilities of a district in the future of which this community retains a robust faith.
Road maps advocated
The provision of ordnance maps for the use of motorists in New Zealand on the same lines as those made available in Great Britain and the Continent was urged by Dr C. Prendergast Knight at the annual meeting of the council of the New Zealand Automobile Union at Wellington.
He moved - ''That this meeting of the New Zealand Automobile Union places on record its appreciation of the topographical map on the scale 1:125,000, now being prepared by the Defence Department, and urges upon the Government the necessity of mapping the dominion on the same scale; that such maps would be very useful to all users of roads throughout the dominion, and if placed on sale at a reasonable price would render the work self-supporting.''
The motion was carried unanimously.
- ODT, 2.7.1919
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