CLAIMS OF NATIONALITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 106, 7 May 1931, Page 19

CLAIMS OF NATIONALITY.

1 regret that I have touched your correspondent on the raw. (I always bought an Englishman could stand anything—even hostile criticism.) The uuliope incident was published in all tae newspapers of that remote period, "obably if the chief officers of the Cal«ope had been English, they would wMEnglish) have "gone one better," "jtt returned to the harbour and towed one Of the other boats out. Your'cormust have a -bad. memory. Afte' English have claimed Shaw, Wild,

the Duke of Wellington, Lord Roberts, and others. Perhaps the greatest honour that could befall any individual is to be born an Englishman. The evolutionary process—starting with the protoplasm—reached its consummation when Nature produced an Englishman. But, nevertheless, the English must not be allowed to brand everything of merit done in the Empire as the work of the English. The Englishman wants to appropriate everything he sees. As Shaw says: "Wherever there are a few shekels gathered together in anyoody's name, there is John Bull in the midst of them." To conclude: The science, the constructive work of the vorld, the inventions, the art, the progress of the human race, flow in one broad stream— every nation contributing its share. The English. make themselves ridiculous when they claim they have contributed more than their quota. HERBERT MULVIHILL.