THE NEW ZEALANDER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 5, 6 January 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE NEW ZEALANDER.

NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS,

(INDEPENDENT AND RETICENT?

(By EILEEN DUGGAN.)

We sometimes talk of our national characteristics, but what are they? A candid stranger tolrl mo once that as a people she had found us "casual and defensive." Even the most sensitive conscience has its blind spots, so that the accusation, it was almost that, may, for all we know, be true. Pondering 011 it afterwards, I cumc to the conclusion that "independent and reticent" might have been a more charitable interpretation. Strangers find Australia warmer in more than the climate, it is true, but sunny countries seem to breed more emotional peoples. A Swede m is more phlegmatic than an Italian. The sun seems the dynamo of tongues. Another stranger, a Frenchwoman, commented to me rather bitterly on our children's lack of purpose. "In France learning is a pleasure, a duty. Our children are taught so. Yours are only waiting for the bell to ring to reach the playground. With you sport and pleasure are twin gods, a bad Castor-arid-Pollux!" Again I could not wholly agree. Certainly we are not so earnest, but some of our youthrul students work very hard. Perhaps, 011 second thoughts, however, our energies are more directed towards the satisfaction of examiners than the acquisition of knowledge for learning's sake. Maurice Baring said that compared with the Russians he felt that he had only smatterings of knowledge. When reading of infant prodigies that lisped Latin and Gieek in Elizabeth's day, some are unregenerately clad to have been born into a less dutiful, if less polished country. Sir_ Thomas More's children wrote to him daily while he was at Court and he answered as regularly, begging for details of their studies. It i» evident that learning was their form of play, for it is recorded that later his daughters debated on philosophy before Henry VIII. Our History. Something of that, spirit lingers still in Continental countries. Our nonchalance concerning it is not the fault of the pioneers. Many of them valued education almost with passion as a thino- denied to themselves .but possible to their children. Perhaps, however, that carelessness may be due in part to an inherited taste for that outdoor life that was both the habit and the need of the first comers. The most romantic portion of our history is the Maori portion, and we are not of the Ma oil race. It makes a difference. And in reading European history we do not feel that this or that battle made or marred our country. Their gonfalons and oriflammes are not our own. Sometimes I am half afraid that more than half our studies are vulgar brain-burn-jn<r3 to a glutted, self-sufficient deity, a nod called "getting 011." But perhaps all new countries have to pass througu

that stage. America, the groat example of it, js almost past it. Her great research foundations prove that. And, since to understand is to forgive, is it not natural? So many of the immigrants, both here and in America, cainc through need of bread that they have left, like a barbed arrow, in their descendants' minds, the dread of insecurity. We have built not even 011 sand, but 011 quicksand, serving, almost unknown to ourselves, a latent fear. We have been told liberally to count our blessings, but, so far as grit and cheerfulness are concerned, New Zcalanders have not disgraced the pioneer records. Women 011 the West Coast have gone with their husbands prospecting, made light of living under canvas, and carried "blueys" of IS4O weight and make. Girls with degrees in arts are scrubbing hospital floors; musicians are waitresses, and solicitors are rabbiters. "Anything sooner than the dole!" is young New Zealand's motto. And it must be remembered that as a nation we are not used to poverty. We were prosperous individually arid collectively before we were caught in the trap of trade, so that the change to privation and insecurity means more to 11s than to a country that lias bread-and-scrape and professional beggars. The Immigrant's Disappointment. I have 110 blame either for the emigrants who have complained of conditions here. They had been given a conception of our prosperity as boundless as Juliet's sea. Naturally they were bewildered when they found not even work. The first settlers in New England thought that they had reached Eldorado, but to obtain a living at all they had to wrestle with recalcitrant soil. They were better off than these last who have had little chance to till at all. Idleness in a strange country is too often cousin gennan of despondency. Oddly enough, among ourselves, there seem to have been more murmurings over reductions than over retrenchments. Our own people are like Dunsany's Queen, who was no longer afraid because the worst had conle. ' Independence of spirit is to be found in most countries of small holdings where folk grow their own food. This fact is now so evident that in England itself a Little Englander party is again rising that demands production instead of importation. Italy and Germany have already raised the same cry. When starvation threatens man becomes landconscious, whereas in times of prosperity men in cities think as little of it as if they were living in a mirage. New Zealand is • not an industrial country, and this spirit is strongly seen. Something in the very air seems to breed it. Men who had been in the habit of pulling their forelocks to the gentry, after only a few years in this country, called Sewell and Edward Gibbon Wakefield by their surnames. Our Insularity. The faults of insularity are, of course, ours, an insularity accentuated by our loneliness. We have a mandate over Samoa, but our average citizen knows as little of Samoa as Englishmen know of the American colonies. We arc nearest to the southern pole, but we leave the Norwegians to glean its fish

harvest. Not seeing far enough in time or in space we draw into our own shores like a snail into its shell. In the country places we very rarely see strangers who are not bf'our own race. Katherine Mansfield's insularity was broadened by contacts, but we sec it in her description of life in France, Continental folk know the need of thrift and French peasants save even peelings. She, coming from a lavish country, was, at times, irritated by their frugal dealings even though she understood the reason. Generosity and prodigality are easy where Nature itself is open-handed and beneficent. It was neither, her own nature nor her country's to hoard, but hunger has taught other nations bitter lessons. Our reticence is defensive and is a mark of isolated peoples, whom*strangeness makes cautious. I was reading recently a review by Margaret Shaw of Vera Brittain's "Testament of Youth," an autobiography of the Great War period. It derided scathingly the author's outlook as unrepresentative of her generation because of its self-pity and emotionalism, saying, "JJo it and do not talk about it was our attitude. Wo hated (and still hate) fuss and sentiment and poppycock." It seemed to me a good description of New Zealand's stoicism in the face of wars and upheavals." Our soldiers were quiet Soldiers; our earthquake refugees were quiet refugees. A Canadian chaplain writing of the Imperial troops said that of them all he admired the New Zcalan'ders most because of a restraint that was almost Indian. Of all our writers the one who has praised New Zealand most unguardedly is Thomas Bracken, who was not a New Zealander. Now Zealamlers seemed to take love of country for granted and their nationalism is allusive rather than direct. Thrift in the Slump. I think perhaps that the woman who said that we were too fond of pleasure touched our weakness with a needle. Even this slump has not taught our generation thrift. Quite elderly folk say, "Let us buy luxuries. The money will go in taxes," and the young echo their resentment. Those who have been actually workless do, in most instances, save when they get the chance, for they dread starvation or dependence. We have not yet a generation born, as in older countries, on the dole and so lost to pride and to hope. As a defence against apathy, our pleasure haunts, our theatres, our racecourses are filled with folk who "just had to distract" their minds from "their troubles. Distraction they certainly need, for brooding brings melancholia, but some spend on it* money that would purchase food for their needy families. And New Zealand, always a disciple of chance, has her share of the world fever for easy gold. Such times as these breed prospectors and speculators. There is always the hope of a find or a win to allure .'optimists, and to most of the world lotteries are irresistible because a beggar has just as much chance as a banker of a fairy tale change in his fortunes. It is also human, so understandable, but out of the many who hope few can win, and it is as true of nations as of individuals that "somebody reaps (he whirlwind where others have sown the wind."