VISITOR’S PRAISE

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 30, 29 October 1932, Page 10

VISITOR’S PRAISE

New Zealand Admired PEOPLE AND SCENERY Wiser Spending Suggested Six weeks in New Zealand, travelling here and there, have made a deep impression on Mr. George Fitz Patrick, of Sydney, superintendent of the New South Wales Community HospitaL Mr. Fitz Patrick was in W’eHington yesterday on his way north, and he gave “The Dominion” an account of how New Zealand appealed to an Australian who was merely, be insisted, “a humble visitor.” He has noticed a tone of confidence in this country, but he suggested—very hesitatingly—that people should indulge more in wise spending. “I am tremendously impressed with New Zealand,” said Mr. Fitz Patrick, “with its quiet courage and extraordinary confidence in facing its difficulties. In Australia we have had a very bad time. At present we are really in travail because of our economic perplexities. But with the advent of the Stevens Government there has been a very remarkable wave of optimism, and the people who have the money are beginning to spend it. If one might be excused the temerity of making a suggestion, simply as a humble visitor, one might point out that the fact that you have £56,000,000 in your savings bank is not necessarily a good thing. If a man is on the basic wage—assume that it is £4 a week —it is obvious that if he saves half and spends only half he is doing a grave injury to his family and to his dependants. And not only to them but to the butcher and baker. Because in this complex civilisation no one person can do anything or refrain from doing anything without the effects of his action or inaction being spread far and wide. National Thrift—National Menace. “When we were younger we were told to save and save and save,” said Mr. Fitz Patrick. “But I venture to think, with great humility, that this is a time for wise spending. National thrift may become a national menace; It is a new doctrine, however, and one upon which I would not dogmatise. “One thing that has struck me here is the extraordinary hospitality of the people, but as an Australian I am tremendously disappointed that the things we read in your papers about Australia mostly concern Communistic bodies, people suiciding from the bridge, stupid, ignorant students preventing professors from talking, and the efforts of the ‘razor gang.’ Those things are only news because they are unusual. Poet, Church and Glacier. “But it is the same in Australia, of course,” said Mr. Fitz Patrick. “Most of what we hear from New Zealand is about your earthquakes. We are lamentably ignorant of the marvels of the glow-worm cave at Waitomo, -which was old before Australia was discovered. We are unappreciative of the beauties of Mount Egmont and colossally ignorant of what one might term nature’s masterpiece—the Franz Josef valley. I would say my trip from Australia had been abundantly worth while just to have had tlie privilege of looking out over the communion rails in the Anglican church at the Franz Josef and seeing the perpetual snows moving down slowly and majestically. “If the poet who wrote ‘One’s near er to God in the garden than anywhere else on earth’ could have been in that church he might have altered his subject matter, I think those are the things we ought to know more about. But I want to pay my tribute to the work that is being done in such directions by Mr. Stilling in Wellington and Mr. Schmitt in Sydney. Dependent Fortunes. “For good or ill, the fortunes of New Zealand and Australia are inevitably interdependent,” Mr. Fitz Patrick said. “One country cannot fail to have repercussions on the other, and one cannot succeed with out the other benefiting. If national sentiment is but the sum of the sentiments of individuals, then any favourable Individual opinion may be reflected in national opinion. For this reason one feels privileged to be even a humble, inconspicuous missioner for the natural beauties of New Zealand and the pleasantness of her people.” Mr. Fitz Patrick said that he had arranged with the Government for a series of lectures to be given in Australia at his own expense on New Zealand and its resources, scenic and otherwise.