UTOPIAS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 249, 20 October 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

UTOPIAS.

NEW ZEAUND VARIETIES.

Bums JUTD OIHBMt

EDITH SEABLE GBOSSMANN,

MJL)

A Danish •writer, Dr. Blondal, Royal Mbiariaii at Oopnnhsgea, has been ■ecently publishing a series of articles >n Utopia*, and it is reported that 1m ntende to crown them by a description >f a Utopia written by one of our best ™* n New Zealand authors, who, how»v«r, in this book writes under the peeulonym of Godfrey Sweven. *~~ r .We ' should naturallysKpeetthat iteraiy Utopias would spring from the >raiu at savants in, Ao-tea-roa. There vas adistinct strain ofUtopianiamiii t§ afcttlement by the pioneers; in jM provinee of. iaeUaadj whmKAoi felwyn, witihi Patteson, art towwrfc te round a new lona to beveentra Ifcariring In th* Bbatb-kmm> in Canterbury, to wlitefethePflcria Fathers came with their Mpt Sdealsrlt ttago, with its picked pious settler* ind at a vety early date;' in the ftwl beginnings of Now Zealand Ifteratum lesoriptkHM of a race living* under bmi uid imaginary conditiona have been conipicuous. Most of-theee seem, unfortu aately, to have disappearedfrom th< shelves of our pubHo and private libraries, and they -linger chiefly in tlx memory of old-time students and oon tributors to long extinct mipilnw oi jut country. One of these is 'The Decline and Fall of the Britisl Empire," a title apparently soggestec by Macaulay's imaginary New Zealanda imong the ruins of London. Its ulte She Hov. Mr. . Watson, of Christchurch was the father of the well-known novel ist, Marriott Watson. Another, "Anne Dimini, 2000," was written by a forme] Premier, Sir JuHu* Vogel; anothei [ketch was, I think, by Mr. Bees, a ormer ItP., of Gisborne. One still survives and a plact n British aa well as New Zealand libraand it undeniably Is one of tlx Severest books of its kind. This fc Butler's* "Erewhon" (which roughl] ia "Nowhere" spelt backwards), published in 1870, with its sequel "Ere'lon Revisited," published twenty yean later. These in so brief a sketch tnaj ilmost be treated as one work. A Jtopia is not jtecessarily a pre-vision ol leaven upon earth, though the general roblic commonly expect it to be, and [especially in the later volume), Butler** lescription is mostly satire on Kxdety. The first volume was writtez ifter a sojourn among what was then th< ilmost unknown and untrodden countrj >f the mountain ranges of North Cantermry,_ where he imagines himself dis jovering an isolated ami highly developed ■ace. The satire is most poignant in thf atter Volume, where we meet with the Professor of Worldy Wisdom, and th< Professor of Unworldly Wisdom, and Professor Proser, who advertises himseU is "certificated bore, pragmatic or cor iscating, (who) with or without aneclotes, attends pupil?, at their owz louses." _ Another, Profeseor Hanky, gol lis position by a debate on the question )f whether it were wiser during a lonf »tay at an hotel to tip the servants at ;he beginning or at the end of the stay Hanky contended that the wisest eourst ras to promise at the beginning ant ;hen to go away without paying. Thi :itizens of Erewhon made it a principle At promote the greatest happiness of th< greatest number; and as the greatesl lumber of people are by native dull conceited and unßcrnpulous, and dislik< those , who are quick, undesigning, anc lincere, the citizens sent their childrer to a Moral Defonnatory to get rid ol iny inoonveUieotVirtues and to assimi late them to' the' bappy; majority. "Umanora" is a' work that standi lpon another footing. It is a Utopia in the sense of an ideal, and it U ai Earnest and perha]4s as 'full of' suggestion as in its. own age Move's "Utopia* was. That it has not been as populai is fErtwhon" even amongst New.■ Zeaandera is due to the faet that, it is a greater, more thoughtful and . mart lerious work, but from the time that ft irst appeased ft has always had iti admirers. In many directions the achievements .of ""tiw.. Tiimanoram follow out .<jfraideiieie* f and foceei ictually at work in our own dvillsaion. As this book was first published inquarter of a eentury ago, some of the ieecriptions are propaecieg, or at kM prognostications of the advancements oi our own time, e-g* television, music bj flight ,« anticipatioai 'sharea lsy most piopiw