A RACE OF FLUNKIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 119, 22 May 1928, Page 8

A RACE OF FLUNKIES.

NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS. WARNING TO NEW ZEAL ANDERS. "If you make this a tourist country you're in grave danger of making New Zealanders a race of flunkies." The speaker was Mr. J. W. Shaw, M.A., and the audience members of the Karangahape Road Business Promotion Society, who were being addressed after to-day's lunch on the subject, "Our Noble Selves."

Some, said Mr. Shaw, would sell their immortal souls to secure a stream of millionaire traffic, but he claimed that this was the worst hope we could have as a national aspiration. Visitors should be welcomed to our beautiful country, and all reasonable provision made for them, but it must not be heralded as a rich man's hunting country, for a corollary would be the creation of a servile type who would be content to wait upon them. Speaking warmly on this subject, Mr. Shaw said he was of Scottish.descent, and could speak of the Highlands, which had become a tourist resort. The race had emigrated, and those who were left spent their time following in the footsteps of Semitic sportsmen in kilts or Cockneys of the same class.

Introducing his subject, the speaker said that up to ten years ago one could outline with possibly a degree of accuracy- certain special characteristics that appeared to indicate a national type in this country. Something appeared to have arrested the development of a type, and to-day he was convinced that one could not say of an individual, " Here is a New Zealander who represents the aspirations, the achievements, the qualified speech and the thoughts of the average man in his country." Having referred to the pronounced lead which New Zealanders took for a time in connection with social legislation, Mr. Shaw suggested that in later years a decline so far -as individuality was concerned had been noticeable. A wave of .Imperialism had set in. and the Imperial sense had dominated our thoughts to the submergence of our- own individuality. This he thought was a pity, Zealand geographically and climatically was so entirely different from other countries that a special personality should result. Already we were evolving a physical type. New Zealanders on the average were deeper in the chest and more sturdier built than the average Australian, and certainly than the average Englishman. He was afraid we were victims of an inferior complex, and in this connection he reminded his hearers that mere size counted for little as was evidenced bv the achievements of the British Isles, of Greece, of Rome and in the religious world of Palestine. It was a bad thing for a small person or a small nation to be oppressed by its sense of smallness. TOO MUCH ATHLETICS. When a nation was oppressed by its inadequacy there were certain avenues it sought to "obtain compensation. In New Zealand there was evident a spirit of over athleticism, and the satisfaction thus gained might blind us to the opportunities available in higher fields. He went to a local bookseller and asked. "How are the New Zealand books getting on?" He always got the same reply, "Nothing doing." Any American book with a flashy cover would sell readily.

The same with art. Xew Zealanders were liable to decrv their own authors and their own artists. ?ilore self assertion in a proper sense was needed. We would not restore a type worth considering until we realised that national aspirations should go higher than to excel in physical sports. He disliked the tendency to imitate. There was enough force and power in New Zealand to create a nation that would by reason of its difference from others be of the sreatest benefit not only to the countrv itself but to the Commonwealth of British nations.