AUSTRALIANS AND ENGLISH.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 215, 11 September 1929, Page 6

AUSTRALIANS AND ENGLISH.

As an Australian who lived for a number, of years in New Zealand, I read with more than passing interest, under the heading of "Australia and New Zealand," the remarks of a certain S. F. A. Coles, reprinted from "Overseas." While paying a generous tribute to Australians, "whose criticisms of England and the English really hide a great kindliness of heart, a willingness to help the. immigrant through his difficulties, and an open hospitality that none who has ever expen'enced it can ever forget," the writer himself indulged in criticism of the Australian's "roughness and absence of graciousness and courtesy in human relationships." These attributes of graciousness arid courtesy, we are told, are "taken for granted" in the Old World. I, for one, am glad to learn it, for, judging by nine-tenths of the Englishmen I have met in this part of the world, and in New Zealand, one would remain in lamentable ignorance of the truth but for Mr. Coles. It is as true as it is regrettable that any criticism Englishmen in this country are subjected to is brought themselves by that "graciousness" and "courtesy" which leads so many of them, and particularly new arrivals, freely to make invidious comparisons between England and the land to which they have come in the hope of bettering themselves. Is it to be expected that a people with that "national and independent ideal" referred to by Mr. Coles would "graciously" and "courteously" agree with the newcomers that compared to Englishmen they are distinctly inferior, and that Australia (or any other country, for that matter —such is the way of the Englishman) is a waste and a desert and an altogether uncivilised outpost, or "colony" (a word especially palatable in the English mouth), compared to that wondrous isle from which they come? No Australian will resent an Englishman singing the praises of his homeland as long as he does not at the same time disparage the homeland of the Australian; but it is the unfortunate failing of the Englishman that he cannot paint the virtues of England without putting his brush in the tar pot to depict the alleged failings of the land and people he comes to. This blundering ungracious and discourteous thoughtlessness of demeanour may be a departure from the usual "graciousness" and "courtesy" which (according to Mr. Coles) the Englishman commonly practises in the land of his birth, but it is none the less unpalatable to the subjects of his disparaging criticism,' who are just as proud of their country as he is of his. Because we have not the "traditions" of hundreds of' years jof history (and we ought to thank God for the absence of some of them) we are told that we are of practically no importance, merely a "colony" (how they love to mouth the word!) of England, that but for England we Avouldn't have been and could not exist, etc., etc., ad lib. Wβ know all this, but why rub it in? We believe we are destined to be a great nation; we know and admit our youth, but we do not like j continually to be reminded of the fact. If, [then, the newcomer jeers at our infancy and our lack of age-stained cathedrals (and Towers of London, blood-stained executioners' blocks and burning-stakes, racks, thumbscrews, and the like) as signs of our paucity in intellect and culture, he need scarcely be surprised at our reprehensible '■'roughness," which is only in keeping with our untutored youth—through being so far away from the refining influence of Mother. It is not only in Australia that the Englishman displays his detestable habit of adversely criticising all things un-English. He has been for so long nurtured in the idea that he is the sait of the earth, and that all other races are his inferiors, that he considers it his unchallengeable

right to stride the earth with that arrogant insularity of demeanour which make the Englishman abroad so heartily hated by foreigners. This demeanour is. bad enough in foreign lands, but when it is displayed among people of his own blood, whom he looks down upon as though they were illegitimate tribes because they were not born and reared among his own mansions (or slums), it is what we Australians call "over the fence."

But Englishmen of the type referred to do not acknowledge any debt to hospitality; they everything as a right inherited at birth, and conduct themselves in British Dominions overseas as overlords, as if to say, "All this is ours," by which is meant England's, of course. As I mentioned before, Australia is not the only country where Englishmen act the boor and the beggar on horseback. I have frequently heard them, while I was in New Zealand, disparaging splendid, hospitable little country—the while they enjoyed better employment and conditions than ever was their good fortune before—and it has been my privilege to tell some of them what I thought of their manners, or, should I have said, "gracious courtesy"? And for all Mr. Coles' assumption of the Englishman being "persona grata" in New Zealand, I doubt whether the .carping critic kind is any more popular there than he is in Australia—if, indeed, he is shown nearly as much toleration. The critical newcomer needs to be thankful that the Australian is such a casual and tolerant fellow, else he would not experience that "real kindliness of heart and willingness to help him through his difficulties," to which Mr. Coles refers; rather would he be given the cold shoulder and the icy eye, and possibly find it convenient to get out of the country before he at last became accustomed to its "crudities." For Australians accept this criticism in a spirit of toleration which finds it not over-difficult to forgive ignorance of this kind, in the knowledge that it will most likely be dispelled by time and experience. But there are some countries in which Englishmen who expressed themselves in the manner indicated would be insufferable and quickly be given what we term "the order of the boot."" We welcome the Englishman among us—or the men and women of other white races—as long as they are what we term "decent fellows," willing to work with us for the good of Australia., but, to tell the truth, we prefer to have them young, so that they may be moulded by their new environment; into good Australians, with a fresh Australian outlook, untrammelled by the fetish of traditions of which we know little and care .less. —AUSTRALIAN READER.