CORRESPONDENCE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 10, 12 July 1909, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

NEW ZEALAND'S " CRITICS." TO THE EDITOfi. „ Sir »— * crave your kind assistance ir the difficult position I find myseH placed, as a visitor to your country, under the following circumstances! ' mere is a man here at present, a South Airican, whom I knew over there, whc appears to me to have taken a most jaundiced view of New Zealand, its government, social conditions, people, everything, i,, f att . T have done ' evel best to combat and refute his contentions—l fear without effect — for he declares that upon his return to Africa, and afterwards to England, he will opeir the eyes" of people there, as to what he calls "the real state of affairs" heie. For instance, he declares that yoiu country is living on capital instead of income, using up assets which should be conserved for posterity ; and leaving as a heritage to posterity a debt far greater than it should be, which steadily increases. Rightly regarded (he says), this is Britain's land, as Britain founded it, spent blood and treasure on it, and has defended it for at least half a century without receiving a penny of payment. He says that the present genoration of New Zealanders is wholly insensible to these facts, and that, because they were bora here, declare it ito be "their" land : which statement, he says, is about as true as that Yorkshire belongs to the people born in Yorkshire. about this glorious wave of patriotism, as I regard it, which he calls the Dreadnought craze, he says it is exactly the same feeling as that which prompted the sending of contingents to the war; namely, self-interest— the fear that Britain's downfall would mean annexation by the first warlike Power i whose forces reached these shores. He boasts that in his birthland there was a population, all told, equal only , to that of your two largest towns (that's what he calls your fine cities), but that they put twenty-five thousand armed : men into the field at ten days' notice ; while, he says, you could not muster more than a fifth of that numberfand then only "men with muskets." He says , that he has seen harbours all over New Zealand without the slightest sign of defence, where the British, or the Ger- ; man, or the Japanese navy could lie close to shore in deep water. When I asked him "where was one?" he m- , stanced Bay of Islands. I suppose he meant Island Bay, and I told him I felt certain that that was well defended if , only he knew the facts. • Then he says that you cannot run your government without imported , Australians and Scotchmen, and sneered at the idea of allowing coloured men to make laws for whites. He says that South Africa has aboriginals quite equal to those here, and even superior to them. He next abused the press for being tongue-tied, or pen-tied, as to much of the crime and immorality prevailinghe declares that it is far worse here than anywhere in South Africa, except, perhaps, Johannesburg (but he frankly owned that he much disliked that place and its people). He said that newspaper staffs were all at the beck and call of capitalists, and were all from Australia, and that New Zealand had no literary class and no literature, except what was imported or produced by imported writers. He contrasted the politeness universal in "his" land, with what he called "the lack of common civility" in this. But that I could not stand, and 1 told him that I had always been most civilly treated in every shop I entered. But he was specially loud about the incompetence (as he called it) shown in the management of your railways. He declared that there was a loss of a quarter of a million annually, which he will persist in attributing to passenger fares being ridiculously below cost, in spite of all I can say to the contrary. He dinned into my ears that other countries cannot make their railways pay under a less charge than a penny a mile for third class, and wants to know how this country can make three- , farthings a mile pay for second class? He says he knows, lYom the price of , labour out here, that even a penny a ttiile would not pay for carrying secondclass passengers. He is one of those men who go round poking their noses into everything, and I unfortunately am not armed with the facts and figures necessary to refute his wholesale abuse. Can you or your readers kindly furnish me with replies to some of his captious criticisms? I return to Africa shortly, where I have friends on the press who will, I am sure, be pnly top glad to publish fact 3as to the conditions obtaining here, if I am enabled to supply them.— l am, etc , EDMUND FORREST. I-The man to whom our correspondent refers does not seem amenable to reason. _ The recital of the "critic's" view of New Zealand manners and enstoms is chiefly interesting, as giving a good example of the peculiar opinions formed about this country by some types of visitors or immigrants. The interest is rather of a psychological order, and we do not feel disposed to undertake the task of inducing 3, more cheerful frame of mind in the chagrined South African.]