MR GREENBIE RETORTS AGAINST HON. R. SEMPLE

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 25022, 2 November 1946, Page 8

MR GREENBIE RETORTS AGAINST HON. R. SEMPLE

UNEASY UTOPIA

We have received from mt c reply to the Hon. R. Semples re from the article, “New Zealand. Mr Greenbie to the Saturday E Here opportunity may be to Press” has secured the right to the first of three or four instate I am astonished that Mr Robert Semnle Minister of Works, should have taken the trouble to castigate me in such eager haste. I f gJJJJ the clippings I have so far seen mat Mr Semple’s outburst against me is based on a resume of my article in “Saturday Evening Post” not on his reading of the article itself. briefed as the cabled report of the New Zealand Press Association may be it still is not a complete report. Mr Semple might haveheM hishorses until the coach arrived But he felt called upon to take notice of me immediately in the style of invective Which has given him such a re P u *?' tion in New Zealand as an orator. My article, which he had not yet read, he calls “poisonous balderdash, ana an outburst written for monetary gain based on the jaundiced view of New Zealand as seen through the confused spectacles of a politically biased m i n< regret that I have to call Mr Semple to task at a time of political crisis in New I have n° desire to inject myself into New Zealand politics. But it ill becomes an important official to jump to conclusions based on something he had not read, and to read into my article what was not there. As to his language, I feel that anyone might have improved on it with an abridged dictionary. To get. at the core of his objections. As Minister of Works he is responsible for housing. Hence he assails my alleged “unfavourable comparison or our housing with housing in America and proceeds along further lines of enraged conjecture to say: “I can only assume Mr Greenbie has not travelled very extensively in liis own country.

Mr Greenbie Quotes Labour Before straightening him out on what I did say, I may assure him that I have lived for a number of years in each of eight States, I have spent from weeks to months in some' 20 of our States, from Maine to California, I have travelled in every State in the Union, and have lectured m some 36 States. But that is entirely beside the point, for I did nqt make any comparisons between our own housing and that of New Zealand. Not only did I not attack his housing developments, but I said, in my article, “The Government has built some 18,000 new houses in the Dominion, a great improvement over the original type. (My figures were the last given me by his department.) Now to come to the. logic of Mr Semple’s abuse. Is not what I said about the old type of housing in New Zealand in my article largely what his Labour Party has said over and over j again, and why they fought so hard to correct it, by building a new type of housing? I did not add in my article, as I might have, current reports in New Zealand that Wellington alone had 35,000 houses unfit for habitation. What, then, a stranger like me would like to know’ is whether what Mr Semple’s party said was necessary ■to make New Zealand a fit place for workers to live in, and for which they sought power, was true or not? If it was true, then why castigate me? If not true, then why did they talk so much about your bad housing before the Labour Government initiated its very excellent housing programme? And why are such generous claims made for what has been achieved if perfection existed before?

Mr Semple Quotes Americans In Mr Semple’s anger at what he thinks I said, he looks furiously about for a comeback. And whom does he bring to his aid? Does he bring a New Zealander who had returned from America with reports of the horrible conditions he found in the United States, but which Americans deny? No! Mr Semple quotes American sources, American surveys American research into American conditions. And those reports are bad. This makes Mr Semple very happy. Though I did not compare New Zealand housing with American housing, it makes him happy that our conditions

ydney J. Greenbie the foUowu cent comments on cabled extras! Uneasy Utopia,” contributed S? vening Post.” ken to inform readers that m eprint Mr Greenbie’s articleents will appear on Monday.* are bad. But surely the fan« Mr Semple quoted American. American conditions is not a SL* upon the attitude of AmeriSJ? lol criticism, and self-criticism 14 Would Mr Semple not be take a leaf out of our American iS.fr You people were always acciSi? Americans of exaggeration and k ging. Yet Mr Semple quoted a52J’ cans on American conditions that derogatory to us. Would it not k * become him better to have acVu* ledged that at least we criticS? 0 * selves? The reports quoted WBrp oUr ' tainly not bragging. Who’s dXT bragging now? Mr Semple an innocent American for darin 5 criticise the perfect, ideal an?* * Seccable conditions that exisS ew Zealand before he came teSLJ 1 And then he produces a whole bS!? ful of words, phrases, claused and sorted parts of speech with reaa! 1 !* housing conditions in America not« of which I even implied. Thp words quoted from my article wwx casual reference to fronted streets which are rhSJßt' tic of most of our American toS? Has Mr Semple ever seen them’ I am puzzled that Mr take so much notice of me Li he took no notice of me in New z? land. He had 13 months durinfZ “visit,” as he puts it to hMrictS During those 13 months I tiSviMS over the land, talked with iWrf your Government officials and people, tried my best to learn thing I could about you. Duna/E time I spent only half-an hourfafe Semple’s office. However on ray 4* requests, I visited many of his ho*£ projects all over the Dominfay, "3 thought they were excellent, and said so. I am sure Mr Semnk Xm search long and fruitlesslylor statements to the contrary, or which I have said a tenth as inutb about the whole housing damaging to the reputation of Zealand as the members of his ok Labour Party have said over and om again—that is, about conditions fefa. they came into power. Nor would I have the temerity as an outaStte report all that your Nationalteti ™ over and over again about condtyS now. All I tried in my innocent was to cut a moderate line behwa the two, avoiding partisanship though I am no longer a servant and called upon to erera diplomatic restraint. As for my “politically biased mhrf —I cannot be lured or tricked Intel statement that will for ever link j» to either the Tories, Republican! $ Southern Democrats, or even the Ifei Zealand Labour Party or National Guess where I stand politically, fist I believe that some of the presati Cabinet have a sneaking suspicion what I think. They took the trcufe to find out. The Writer’s Right and Daty Now with regard to writing monetary gain,” come Mff, Mr Semple, I am only a humble write who* has earned his living for 30 yew. by his pen. We in America do not regard that as dishonourable. naming your living by writing is at least as honourable as earning it by polite I wonder if Mr Semple is a&hamtio! taking his salary as a Governratt. official. I wrote this article as carefully and sympathetically as I cadt It was accepted by the "Saturiij Evening Post! and published without the change of a single word. Itel charge that either I or the “Post" polished it for any reason except to Id the truth is a scurrilous charge wtid no responsible official ought to mih| I have fought too many a losing tatdH for the truth, to my own tage, to let the charge go unchallenji Since my return to America I tot lectured on New Zealand many timu Whatever criticisms I may mate, have great respect for your country and your people, and I wish them well. But I believe you can stand your own achievements without silly exaggeration.