LIVING A HALF-LIFE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22431, 18 June 1938, Page 19

LIVING A HALF-LIFE

A New Zealander Talks of His Own People ,

IS New Zealand one of the best places in the world to live in? Mr J. N. Sellers, late of Wel-

lington and Dunedin, does not think so, writes the London correspondent of “The Press.” He recently told the Ormskirk (Lancashire) Rotary Club that he left New Zealand to come and live in the Old Country because the Dominion is 12,000 miles away from England and Europe, the centres of- civilisation where things are being done. “I am isolated, living a half-life,” he said. “Can you wonder that I leave? Can you wonder that I cannot remain satisfied to sit still while the rest of the world goes by—a world I have never seen? Naturally, I leave New Zealand. And doing so I flatter myself that I am part of what is known in New Zealand as ‘the export of youth.’ For we leave in scores. And most of us come to England. We could just as easily go to America. But we come to England because England means life and death to us.” He classified the white residents of New Zealand into four groups:— “(1) The Canterbury type. Their lives centring on the Cathedral City of Christchurch. These people are more English than the English—and proud of it. They may like you personally, but they like you much better if they know that your father and mother are ‘respectable.’ They love traditions and many a Canterbury dowager would pursue a ‘title’ to the ends of the earth. If you' like a Victorian atmosphere, go to Canterbury. I was born there. The Dunedin Type “(2) The Dunedin type. Essentially a Scotch settlement. Dunedin still rings with the sound of the bagpipes. Naturally the University of Otago is the pride of Dunedin’s citizens. Outwardly you wquld find this Edinburgh of the south a quiet, unpretentious little place. But Dunedin men w’ 1 l tell you that although Auckland may have all the big modern buildings, it is Dunedin money that has built them. Here you will find true friendliness and deep sincerity, „ , “(3) The West Coaster. He’s a tough customer. Pubs in New Zea-

land close at 6 p.m., and are not open on Sundays. But the West Coaster doesn’t care in the least about that law. Cinemas are closed on Sundays. But the West Coaster doesn’t care about that either. Descended from Irishmen attracted by the gold-rush, the West Coaster believes that he lives a man’s life going down mines, hewing down forests, and living a more or less isolated life in his land of mist and mountains. And he is not far wrong either.

“(4) The Northerner. In the North Island you get a more cosmopolitan sort of chap—if you can call people cosmopolitan who live 12,000 miles away from Europe. This, I think, ’s because the original settlements were not planned so intensely as those in the south; because the seat of government is in the north; because overseas shipping goes to the north; and because there are more people in the north, and it makes more noise about itself than the south. You can’t pick out little groups in the north as you can in the south. It is more national than the local and provincial south.” Mr Sellers gave a breezy account of life “in the Land of the Long White Cloud.”