house, but mistress in my own,’ filia matris in domo, domina sum tamen domi. Six of these eminent representatives are now present, men who have successfully administered the affairs of their respective colonies, men by whose labours we trust that all those vast provinces, however distant they are, may at some future day be united to one another and to the United Kingdom by a close federal union. Men such as these—united as they are in a common cause—we are unwilling to separate from one another even when we praise them. And yet we gladly welcome each in turn; and while each familiar name will shortly be proclaimed aloud, we shall at the same time silently remember all the heirs of Britain’s name throughout the world.”
When it came to Mr. Seddon’s turn in the individual presentations, Dr. Sandys spoke in Latin to the following effect:—
“New Zealand, a group of islands of almost the same extent as our own country, has sent us her Prime Minister, a man who, endowed with a truly liberal spirit, and thinking that nothing should be excluded from the ranks of his party, was the first of all Ministers of the British Empire to grant the right of voting to the sex to which the Goddess of Learning and the Muses belong. I present to you a man well worthy of honour, Richard John Seddon.”
Wearing a scarlet stuff gown with pink silk facings, and his Doctor of Laws bonnet, Mr. Seddon received the hand-clasp of the Vice-Chancellor, and became an honorary LL.D. of Cambridge.
To the world’s eyes he gave himself up to thorough enjoyment on that Diamond Jubilee visit. It seemed to the colonists whom he had left behind, and who read of his doings in their daily newspapers, that he spent a merry and a magnificent holiday. While all England was rejoicing, however, he was observing and thinking, and his observations and thoughts made more steadfast his determination that, as far as his power went, New Zealanders would never be like the physically inferior human beings he saw in the manufacturing districts of the United Kingdom.
At Belfast he went through the flax and linen factories, and made mental note of the fact that children eleven years of age there were not equal in size to children five years of age in New Zealand. He could not refrain from expressing his surprise at seeing those little, stunted, puny, and almost degenerate beings at work in the factories. They ought to have been at school, but there they were, with their gowns wet through,
