In recognition of his representative position and eminent public services.
"Today, were any of you to go to the city of Dunedin, you would find that the Scotsmen who lived there at the time referred to by the Lord Provost had not forgotten the land from which they sprang. There you will find Princes Street, High Street, and the Water of Leith. And the Water of Leith, I may say - you will not take offence at it - is a much finer one than you could show them in the old country. You will also find a statue of your distinguished poet, Robert Burns. So that your Scottish brethren who went to New Zealand in those early days have not forgotten the traditions of Scotland in many respects. And there you will find, from that beginning of a paper which was founded in Edinburgh, papers published in the city of Dunedin, the new Edinburgh of New Zealand, equal to those published in any part of the world. So that our friends from the old land have carried into the newer one of New Zealand all the branches of literature, arts, science, and the development of commerce and industries that you taught them, and their children, before they went from Scotland."