THE PRIDE OF ST. PATRICK'S DAY.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13683, 17 March 1910, Page 7

THE PRIDE OF ST. PATRICK'S DAY.

(Writtej- for "'The Pbess.")

(By an Envious Outsider)

I always havo an honest admiration for Ireland, the pleasant snakeles3 land, tho homo of W. B. Yeats and Brian Bom, of Robert Emmett and Harrigan, and Mr Dooley's ancestors. But once a year I give myself up to whole-hearted black envy of all who cau call Ireland theirs. For the rest of the twelve-month I can find satis- \ faction and comfort in being a New j Zealander, a citizen of no mean state. But on St. Patrick's Day that consolation pronteth mc nothing, and all my citizenship is as filthy rags. At my old school, all of us, whether Irish or outer barbarian-, used alike to wear green on St. Patricks Day. If we should i>e so forgetful as to come :to school without it, there was a ! laurel hedge nearby wherofrom to reI pair the tleficieucy. tf remember a i dov possessed of an evil spirit, who picked and wore, instead oi a green rrt_h leaf, a faded' yellow one. it he had not left school long ago, no would still be working out the punishments that foolishness directly and indirectly brou_*ht upon him.) But now one is grown up, it -would, be affectation to wear shamrock, or its colour, it one could not claim Irish blood to justify it. It would be worse than going to a -party to which one had iot been invited. There is no race of men sending dwellers to these islands tnat can show a festival which stands to them for anything like St. Patrick's Day to the Irish. St. Andrew's Day is a poor rliing by comparison—an opportunity for a bit haggis the nicht, and belyve. a bit headache tho morn—but that is not enough to make a day unique anions; the three hundred and sixtyfive. " I ara not sure that the various local Caledonian sports days that xcur spasmodically throughout the country are not the occasion for more display of Scots' national feeling and sentiment than any other days in the year. But they are local and varrable, and a stranger might well forget them: whereas I greatly doubt if there is a single person living in this Dominion and taking an ordinary man's casual interest in its doings, who can wake up on the eighteenth of March and not be aware that the seventeenth of March was Si. Patrick's Day. The English pay no such reverence to St. George's Day—unless they work in a bank or a Government office. Jt j is true there are other occasions on which they proclaim their nationality; but do so after a different fashion from tho Irish. Tho English, when their turn comes round, manage to arrange a ceremonial parade of the volunteers, and invite all and sundry, Saxon or Celt or whatever they bo, to consider themselves all English for the purposes of the celebration in hand. And it is at such times that the "woeful confusion of "English and "British" becomes noticeable, and (it is understood) causes so much distress of mind among the accurate people south of the Waitaki.

But if the Scots and the English do not make festival in any general manner it is purely their own fault, or the result of the national temperament, or some other cause for which they deserve no condolence. With us New Zealanders, the case is different. We have no national day however we may desire one. "Dominion Day," you may object. But Dominion Day will not do at all: It has been tried and found a failure. Perhaps it is too new. Perhaps in a few decades, when it has some commemorative associations behind.it, and the odour of current politics that at present, clings to it is blown away, it will serve the purpose.* Perhaps if we had a distinctive national drink, all would be well. But it is idle to expect that a date which has been fixed merely as the out- ! come of certain political operations, | which has neither a religious idea to | base it on, like the festival of St. Patrick, nor associations of splendid eating to go with it, like the American "Thanksgiving—and turkey—or the English Christmas—and plum-pudding and even the memory of some great victory in war, can,ever become an universal holiday, shrined in the hearts of the people. A day, a badge, and a oolour—all these the Irish have, and flaunt in our faces, while we have them not. Has New Zealand even any patron saint? If it has, his feast day is not recognised in the list of legal bank holidays. Havo we a national badge? Perhaps the fera-leaf has now attained that eminence, having received official recognition, in the uniform of New Zealand troops sent to the last Boer War. But the flax-stick stood for New Zealand in the old time, and may now be deposed only by some temporary ohange of fashion. (Let the newspaper correspondents settle it among them). And I have read a poem, fairly writ, wherein the little manuka, most wideiy-suread dainti'y fragrant of all our native plants, was chosen for the national, wear of Maoriland; the choice has not a little to recommend it.

I am aware that the flag of the Dominion carries the Southern Cross. How that has come to pass, I do not pretend to know. Perhaps it is based on some of the flags that tho early missionaries- and Lieutenant-Governors used to construct for loyal Maori chiefs. Perhaps is is due to the influence of the house-flag of the Shaw, Savill and Albion Company,'which still flies sometimes from flag-poets, masquerading as the national standard. (It"is not so long since even a prominent bank, and a public building, flew it proudly on all occasions when flags axe wont to be hoisted). More likely the Cross wa_ allotted to us upon the bright idea of some official in the Colonial Office in London, when ho was distributing tho badges for various colonies.

But the Southern Cross is not, on the whole, a very suitable emblem. To begin with, it is not even distinctive; it appears in various combinations in tho flags of other Australasian States, ond also of tlie Commonwealth. It would be sublime impudence in New Zealand to claim exclusive possession of it, when every country in the Southern Hemisphere has at least an equal right to have it waving, as it shines, overhead. Let us not make ourselves ridiculous by taking possession of the most conspicuous part of the firmament as the sign of our own small islands, excellent places though we ourselves may deem them.

As for our national colour, I am reminded of the quandary of the Rugby Union, when they wanted a colour for the jersey of the New Zealand representative team, and being unwilling to adopt the colours of any particular province, and knowing, none that was common to all, selected in despair "''all black"—the negation of all colours, no colour at all. It was a most unfortunate choice, inasmuch as it is probable that it gave not a few Europeans tho impression that our people are black in body as well as our footballers in jersey. Nothing is less probable than that black will ever become tlie national colour of New Zealand.

_,Green would be rather a happy choice. It is the colour alike of fern and flexbush, and a prevailing tone of many miles of our land. Personally, I have come across it in ties, and if one's women-kind choose the right shades, it is a pleasant and restful tint. But there is the grave objection that it is not original, and in sentimental matters like this, borrowed plumes are undesirable. Moreover, Napper Tandy

would find in our adoption of green, another injoostice to the most disthressftil counthry. Might one suggest, however, the combination of green and silver, taking tlie hint from Shakespeare's description made for an island in other seas, but equally suitable for ours ?

But that also I leave to '"ConstanV Reader," and "Pro Bono Publico," with my compliments. Meanwhile, I can always .find comfort in the invitation of a greater newspaper essayist than 1, and join with Elia in the noble gathering whose yearly festival comes round on the first of April—not so far ahead now.