IN THE PUBLIC MIND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 88, 15 April 1933, Page 6

IN THE PUBLIC MIND.

CANDID CRITICISM

A NEWCOMER'S IMPRESSIONS,

(To the Editor.) I have been in New Zealand; Auckland Province only, for eighteen months arid have travelled more than half my life, though not everywhere, so feel qualified to gratify "A.F.'s" request. New Zealanders may, as stated, "he more English than the English, but that is no harm. They certainly 011 the average speak better English than the English. Nowhere else that I know of do shop assistants and waitresses speak so well and act so politely.' The impudence of some countries and the servility of others are quite absent. The scenery is unique and is New Zealand's own, onlyresembling English scenery as far as Pokeno, with the exception of Cambridge. New Zealanders are wonderfully inhospitable, narrow untravelled and suspicious of strangers. You may be a wonderful people, as other visitors say, but it is so hard to get under your skins that it is difficult to find out. Of course, I am not a public personality, to be feted, wined and slapped on the back, but just a business, man. Your country has fostered the farmer, and I don't blame it, but why the antipathy to secondary industries' Aueklanders are intensively unpatriotic towards "local productions" and always refer to England as "Home." Haven't you got a homo of your own? The lack of vision of your politicians is only exceeded by the grumbling and fault-finding of the people, who seem to spend all day talking- depression. Scarcely a ray of hope brightens the outlook, excepting perhaps among some manufacturers. Cheer up, your politicians may not be as bad as you say, or, if they are, you elected them, so it's not their fault. Your newspapers are dignified and dependable, and far above the sensationmoil goring "rags" which so disgrace journalism in other lands. Even they, however, see— to join the popular disregard for your own i.. ,i 3 productions. How you expect to re-employ your relief workers if you don't give them something to make, I don't know. By running everlasting art unions? But. tell me, where are the New Zealanders? In trams, shops, shoplets, elevators, hotels, everywhere one hears English provincialism. Have the New Zealanders all gone farming or 011 relief?

WANDERER.