GOD'S OWN COUNTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 94, 22 April 1926, Page 10

GOD'S OWN COUNTRY.

THE NATIONAL HERITAGE. KEEPING THE FLAG FLYING. (By "ON-SIDE MAC") . New Zealand is the finest country in the world, and its people are more British than Britain itself. We possess the finest scenery (Rotorua and Milford Sound), the- greatest athletes (All Blacks), the fastest racehorse (Gloaming), and the most southerly lamp-post (at Bluff). Verily, we are a great people. Way back in the early days, those sturdy Scotch pioneers who settled in the South Island brought out with them from the land of oatcakes and heather a phrase which deserves to be immortalised. It is even. said that the guidmon used to include it in the family prayers o' nights round the blazing hearthstone, in the form of: "Oh, Lord, gie to us and oora a quid conceit o' oorsels." It was certainly the highest pinnacle of endeavour to which one could strive in those early days in the land of the.. Maori, and it has been cherished down through the years as a sort of mental porridge. Prior to the advent of that loyal son of Empire, Sir James Parr, who I do hope and trust will arrive in London with a red, white and blue ribbon in - his coat, the Hon. Josiah Hanan held the portfolio of Education. Many times and oft I have heard him eloquently declaiming to the children in resound- j in_» periods the many virtues of "the brightest jewel in the British crown." j And I am not ashamed to say that tears of -joy coursed down my cheeks as I have heard him conclude a stirring j peroration with these words: "First flower of the earth; first gem of the | seas." Truly the children are being brought up in the way in which they should go, and as they reach man's estate our wise and beneficient Govern-1 ment decrees that when they come along; to its political meetings they shall find: the platform nicely decorated Witn Union Jacks, to show them that if other parties forget King and Empire, the Government at least will fulfil its sacred -duty. Under the leadership of such men as these, the future of God's Own i is 'in safe hands. Much has been done to the greater glory of Enzed by the judicious manner in Avhich we deal with visitors to ! these shores. We expect their approval, and we generally get it —or we know the reason why. True, there have been isolated cases of visitors to this fair; Dominion who have so far forgotten the duty they owed to their hosts as to indulge in unfavourable comparisons. But we do not readily tolerate that sort of thing. Take that Swedish journalist fellow. Tell it not in Gath, but I caw his scandalous attack on the noble womanhood of this -country referred to in an overseas periodical as "a slashing indictment of Maoriland flapperdom.*' Weill Well! There is no saying what some people will stoop to' in order to blacken our national character. Did not our most prominent feminists step into the breach on that occasion and smite the foreigner hip and thigh, as the Good Book tells us to do to them that hate as? Did not one, more skilled in verbal warfare than the rest, threaten to lift the veil on the treatment accorded to womenkind in the country of this self-same foreign misanthropist, and did she not hit on the masterly retort that he and his kind were no gentlemen, anyhow? Small wonder, then, that, having risen a hornet's nest about his ears, this fellow incontinently fled to catch the next boat for Australia. Fortunately, these incidents are few and far between. But in what category are we to place the latest utterances of no less a person than a minister of the Gospel and the Mayor of one of our largest cities to boot. This is what I read a few days ago in the newsprints: "In a sermon yesterday, the Rev. J. K. Archer, Mayor of Christchurch, Baid: 'Colonials are great skiters, and, in fact, of all the skiters I have come across, colonials take the cake. Each city and town skites itself up as being the best. I am a great believer in Christchurch, of course, especially since I have been Mayor, and I might want your votes next election, perhaps.'" One's faith in human nature is shaken to the core. There remains the slender hope that the Rev. J. -K. Archer will have the good sense to realise the position, and declare that he was misre-port-ed.