DOMINION DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 228, 26 September 1922, Page 4

DOMINION DAY.

LACK OF ENTHUSIASM. A LESSON FROM AUSTRALIA. (By A CORRESPONDENT.) To one accustomed to Wattle Day in Sydney, one feels a sense of disappointment at the want of enthusiasm shown on this, New Zealand's day of days. ' No . doubt the name is not a happy one, but having been chosen, we should try to | work up more feeling about it. Even I more than Anzac. the name should stand, !as it symbolises the beginning of New i Zealand's nationhood. Everyone in I Sydney, or in any other place in Alisj tralia, wears a sprig of wattle in his buttonhole on that day. But in New Zealand Dominion Day passes almost un- ' recognised, certainly nothing is worn in ' the shape of flowers to commemorate it. i Why cannot we make Dominion Day | fern day, combine the two, and there , would be something to look forward to, some tangible evidence that Dominion Day is a live institution. New Zealanders seem to lack imagination when i compared with their cousins across tbe i Tasman Sea. Why is it? We have, | according to the late Lord Nor-tbcliffe, j the finest papers south of the line, but I do not remember reading that he had I said anything about us having a national magazine, breathing tlie spirit of New Zealand. And if there-is or was a magazine lof that type New Zealanders would be ! the last to patronise it. We buy over- ' seas periodicals and get our ideas i second-hand, and upset the sensitive j American by judging him on the . material we read in his wild west . periodicals. I There is no better way to arouse a ' people to a sense of nationhood than to j have a national emblem, and to wear it. j Australia realises that, and that is why j Wattle Day is so popular. Nations, like | people, are taken at their own valuation, j and it is certainly no one's fault but our own that we are scarcely ever heard 'of on the other side of the world, and ! when we are, are very often supposed to ,be a suburb of Sydney. Let us make i Dominion Day fern day: never mind ■ about hurting the other fellow's feelings. I .losh Billings has said there are only two I classes of people in this world. The | fellow that gets his toes trodden on, and ■ the one that treads on 'em. No one will arouse a national spirit in New Zealand | for ns: we have to do it ourselves. And i unless we arouse that spirit the fellow froni somewhere north of the equator lis going to tread on our toes hard! With j j a population of fifty millions, and an I efficient submarine fleet hiding in oxir j I numerous bays and sounds, we would be a tough proposition for any nation. [ But before, we get the much-needed population, we will have to get a national spirit, that can see further ahead than just being a dairy farming community. 'We have minerals, cheap water power. I and everything that a self-contained nation needs. But here again the persons responsible for supplying the i electrical power are dubious as to the j farmers using it when ready. What : matters it if the farmers will not use I it—the manufacturers will. You will j not find Australians vacillating over ; projects like that. Burrenjuck Dam has j not paid them yet. but it will. Lot lus look ahead, and rouse a spirit of j National independence in ourselves. And jif we can by wearing ferns on Dominion | Day make it equal to Australia's Wattle I Day, then we have gone a long way i towards making New Zealand the nation i that she will be eventually.