AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 197, 21 August 1929, Page 6

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND.

Writing in "Overseas" after having had experience in sheep farming in New Zealand and Australia, Mr. S. F. A. Coles says:— Ono of the first impressions of which an Englishman becomes awciro in Australia is that a very definite prejudice pxists against him there, and against this cov/ntxy, due mainly, I think, to differences in temihrvftment and tradition. An Adelaide friend, to whom I was speaking in Kensington Gardens a. fe*lv weeks ago, remarked to me that this antipathy- is natural and inevitable to most Australians, "j.vho are nurtured on the belief that the Old Country is effete, and that all Englishmen are irra solute and ineffectual. Furthermore, it cannot lie denied that there is a "roughness" in Australia, an absence of the graciousness and courtejsy in human relationships that we are apt to tajie for granted in the Old World, and a highly critical, attitude towards England and the Englisjt which touches the settler from this country raUher closely until he has accustomed himself to : it, and discovered that it really hides a great kirt lliness of heart, a willingness to help him his difficulties, and an open hospitality that nifme who has had the good fortune to experience cc*ild ever forget. Unlike New Zealand, where the Englishman is "persona grata" whenever he goes, and where ihe finds so close a resemblance to home life and conditions that it is offcun only with an effort that he realises the distance which separates him from home, the national and independent ideal is so firmly rooted in the Viearts of the Australian people that English custom's and traditions, where they impinge upon Australian sentiment, are at a heavy discount. For if tifoe aim of New Zealand is to incorporate more and mi ore the British standpoint in civic life, the saaiie cannot be said of her sister Dominion, who quite obviously purposes' to develop in as short a tiriie as possible into an integral and independent nation, with customs and traditions of her own. From my experiences itt town and bush I formed the impression that Australia offers exceptional opportunities to the Englishman with enterprise and a taste for adranture, who is temperamentally suited to the coiydtry; but he should bo prepared for anything and "expect nothing. In short, he must have a heart flor any fate.