NATIONAL EMBLEMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 25, 30 January 1934, Page 6

NATIONAL EMBLEMS.

OUR NEW COINAGE.

(By J.C.)

"More British than the British" is the impression of New Zealanders formed by our nautical visitor "Taffrail." Some of us may I be growing just a little tired of these enthusiastic and superficial expressions of approval of the colonial attituae. Visitors who arc hospitably received and who find everyone on their very nicest behaviour cannot but pay us in return what they consider is the highest possible compliment. However, there are indications that New Zealand is beginning to realise its own capacity fior nationhood and is not disposed to copy everything English because it is English. Our attachment to •Britain is none the less real .because, for example, we are adopting New Zealand emblems for our coins. We are beginning to ' find that there is some virtue in the pride jof the native-born, and that the characteristic natural features of our country, the trees and .birds, the Maori life, are things that we can. j interweave profitably into the fabric of New. Zealand nationality. There is a growing (feeling, despite "Taff rail's" view, that we should be New Zealanders first and British afterwards. And, really, the Englishman visiting us will respect us all the more for that rational form of patriotism. The dawning recognition of New Zealand's need for more strongly marked independence of outlook and insistence on nationhood is symbolised to some degree in our new silver coinage. We will have here something that is distinctive ofi the country. The King's head on the. one side, the New Zealand emblems on the other, they indicate Imperial fealty, the Empire partnership, and New Zealand I nationality. The half-crown has already | been received from the Royal Mint. Brief (descriptions of the other silver coins published lately show that they will be typically New Zealand in design; of their technical and artistic correctness we have yet to judge. The two-shilling piece will show the kiwi; the .shilling will have a Maori warrior grasping a taiaha; on the sixpence is the huia; and the threepenny piece will have two Maori meres, or patus, crossed. Thus the Maori and the bush birds furnish the inspiration for designs that stamp our money. They certainly arc distinctive of. the country; and Lhore is* some satisfaction in reflecting on the change in New. Zealanders' estimate of the country's natural treasures which they typify. There was a time when nothing New Zealand contained in flora or fauna was as good a£ the things that were English. Once upon a time the accMmators and sportsmen actually demanded the extermination of the kiwi because it was accused of eating pheasants' eggs. Now we put the rare old bird on our coins. Rightly so, too; there is nothing more picturesquely typical of New Zealand. The "manu huna a Tane" —the hidden bird of the Sorest god, as the Maori describes the kiwihas indeed considerable fame already in trade devices, and on bank notes. It is full time he was on our coins. The huia is termed by the Maori a "manu rangatira," a chieftainlike bird. Like the kotuku, the beautiful white heron, now all but vanished, it is eminently an aristocrat. Ala's, however, we have lost the huia,. the forest ariki of all. As for the Maori emblems, the taiaha is the most shapely and handsome and at the same time the most effective'of all the wooden weapons used by the Maori warrior of old, and by the orator of the old school. It is pre-eminently distinctive of Maoridom.' The mere, or patu, of greenstone, however, is the greatest treasure of all. Its associations, legends, poetry even, are endless. Sometimes in war a captured chief, submitting to the inevitable, would calmly await the death blow and would hand his captor his own weapon, a treasured patu. "Take this patu," he would say, and bow his head for the "tipi," the death stroke. Jf he was to be sent to the Keinga, let it be with his own club; no plebeian weapon should touch his sacred head. I have often regretted to see vastlytreasured weapons ofi this kind, family and tribal relics, saturated with story, given away to transient pakeha visitors in an impulse of hospitable generosity. One only hopes that in the new bit design the Boyal Mint artist has, in his limited space, made the meres look something like the real thing and not like two sodawater bottles crossed. —J.C.