AUCKLAND AND ITS PEOPLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 199, 24 August 1925, Page 8

AUCKLAND AND ITS PEOPLE.

A MISSISSIPPI VIEW. Those of us who have taken time out to read the New Zealand papers will undoubtedly have noticed that many of the editorials and comments have aimed scathing attacks at a certain class of New Zealander who has not come across in the matter of putting out the old hand to us, says the "Bulletin," published aboard the battleship Mississippi This very fact should act to take aw*y any sting that might have been felt, for it clearly shows that the better element here are regretful that anything should mar our getting together as Englishspeaking peoples should. If we are perfectly fair we must admit that in our own country we have trouble makers who continually make their ignorant and unwanted presence felt; we of the Navy have run foul of them in every port, but.knowing our own land we realise without conscious thought that .they are not the real backbone of the people, and think nothing of it other than to regret that we have to claim as Americans such a poor brand of fellow. We all know our own friends to be of entirely different stuff back home, but coming into a strange port we are apt to lose sight of the fact that the small percentage of the people who cross our paths can scarcely be considered as a cross section of the nation. To use our own sea-going phraseology in translation of the local papers' diagnosis of the difficulty, it is only a small coterie of '"young squirts'' who were scarcely out of square cotton garments when we had our late lamented argument with Germany—they are the ones that have embarrassed the rest of a splendid, substantial people. But now we have all made friends of the sort that we like, and realise that the alleged coolness was nothing but the usual slow process of getting acquainted—the same process we have in our own cities and nothing the least out of the ordinary. So the "Bulletin's" message to you of the Missy and other ships, and to the fine people of Auckland who had the courage and rare understanding to publish the findings of their introspection is: Shake —and Ms not be annoyed by a handful of silly youngsters.