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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 67

Mr. Connells Faith in Young Colonials

Mr. Connells Faith in Young Colonials.

Now, I will tell you one principal reason why I have such faith in young colonials. It is this :—We all have character. (Laughter.) Mind, you have all got character—some a little better than others, and some a little worse. And that character was not made in a day. It is a thing that has been built up. It is the result of causes which have been at work for years. And each one here bears in himself the effect which those causes have produced. Now, the grandest of all things for building up character are the influences of home association, and the influence of work. Mark that. I say the greatest thing for forming and settling a man's character is that home influence and the nature of the work in which he has been engaged; and there is no kind of occupation in this world that yields such splendid character as outdoor labour in a young country. If you find a large number of the population of a country engaged in assisting to conquor nature, and in improving the face of the land on which they live, you get the finest material in the world for a nation. But if you find the vast mass of men shut up in small rooms, ill-ventilated, and engaged in a dull routine of toil in the production of boots and shoes, and things of that kind, you cannot expect to have the sturdiness and manliness of the man who takes his shirt off and knocks down a big tree every day of his life. (Cheers and laughter.) Therefore it is because our young colonials know what this sort of work is that I believe they are unsurpassed in the world. ([unclear: Laugh] cheers.) There is scarcely any [unclear: colonial] who does not know what to knock about in stock-[unclear: yard] his knees in mud [unclear: among] or who cannot take his axe in his [unclear: ha] chop down a tree, or who cannot [unclear: ta] spade and dig up a patch of [unclear: potatoes] voice : "What about gum-[unclear: digging] will tell you something about [unclear: gum-] in a little. I say that that is the of occupation that forms [unclear: cha] and it is in the out door [unclear: sports] occupations, and the life of young New Zealander, that I sec the [unclear: tion] of the grandest material to be [unclear: fo] the world for democratic [unclear: gover] There is another thing to be seen, [unclear: and] is what I call the esprit de corps of the colonial. (A voice : "What's [unclear: that] laughter.) It is a grand [unclear: thing] older hands have got the [unclear: esprit de] old colonials, and the chairman [unclear: and] feel a bond of sympathy between us [unclear: t] simply because we are old [unclear: colonials.] every old colonial has got a [unclear: love] liking for every other old [unclear: colonial] then, that the young colonials [unclear: have] esprit de corps. And I will tell [unclear: you,] men, that, highly as I think of my [unclear: ov]—the old colonials—yet that I [unclear: thir] more highly of the young colonel (Applause.) That is a fact. (Cheers)