"ESCAPED THE CURSE"

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 124, 21 November 1925, Page 6

"ESCAPED THE CURSE"

NEW ZEALAND'S SOCIAL ADVANCE AN AMERICAN'S IMPRESSIONS. The visit of tho American fleet this year has no doubt placed New Zealand on the map so far as many hundreds and thousands of citizens of the United States are concerned, for numerous articles on the Dominion have appeared in the American Press reecntly describing impressions of g tour through this land. On the whole the opinions expressed are fair, and the information conveyed is accurate • and useful. The New York "World" publishes some- interesting impressions by Frank Jiobn, and the writer seems to have endeavoured to portray conditions as they are, without unduly stretching his imagination. • ' ' New Zealand hotel methods not infrequently come in for criticism by the visitor from abroad, and one of the principal hostelries of the northern city seema to have caused the writer some anxiety. "The leading hotel of Auckland," he says,-"though inmost sumptuous inn, gave the writer no key with which to lock his door. Upon appealing to the clerk in the office, that dignitary expressed surprise and a feeling of injury. 'Indeed,' he said, 'we never lock doors here. Why should ■we?' " The guest hardly knew how to make reply, ■He waited in silence for further words of explanation. Receiving none, he at last murmured: .'1 suppose my bags will be quite'wife until I return. I have not yet unpacked." "Of course they will be safe," - waa .the reply, "nothing has been stolen from an Auckland or a New Zealand hotel, so far as I know, in the memory of the oldest inhabitant. There was one burglary some years ago, but it was several hundred miles south of here. When tjie fellow was caught -we discovered, of course, that he was an Australian."

A QUIET CITY. The visitor thereupon took refuge on an upper balcony which overlooked the city on two sides, and fell to comparing tho traffic in the main streets with that in the cities of the United States. "On the land side," "he_ writes, "although it was 10 o'clock on a Saturday morning, end tho hotel was located on a busy thoroughfare, the city was quietly restful. The crowds of busineES folk on the sidewalks seemed to be strolling after the manner of an American crowd in a park on a Sunday afternoon. The soft murmur jniuht have issued from Main street in a Virginia town of 10,000 inhabitants. "It really dees exist —that one little far-off land, of " heart's desire," Mr, Bohn proceeds. "There autumn lingers on . into winter, and so meets . spring upon her way. Summer, brings no excessive heat, nor (toes winter become the enemy of man. Somehow this far land has escaped.the curse; And them society has come to be,-, at' la»t, the friend o? the individual. There is n-i poverty and no darteei'oun monopoly </f wealth by a class. New Zealand is applying what if called ' common sense' to the *ocja! problem- For instance, while there is the beat of drink sold at moderate prices, the writer never once during » three months' stay saw an intosic«t«J person, ;' r "A GREATER YEli.dWSTOJm'' "To ihe much-travelled it is always folly to make comparisons as regards •BceDeß of natural beauty. But there is something peculiar about the beauty of ..New Zealand as a whole. For so small *a land there is mi}ch grandeur. The sounds which indent the shores of the southern island are quite as remarkable as the fiords of Norway. The 'uncanny country' of Rotorua and Wairakei is a greater Yellowstone, with boiling springs, seething mud pits, and geysers by the score, 1' ■ Enumerating a brief list of fundamentals of political progress in -New Zealand, the writer says that the public mind of the country has produced a system of ' social welfare legislation which appeals to many people in America an remarkably balanced and effectual. This newer system had been developed out of a full generation of experience, and being now fully accepted by all parties and classes, it bad taken the form of a permanent social order. Among these reforms- are mentioned "a public health service which has given New Zealand both the lowest rate of infant mortality in the world and the lowest general death rate in the world, and the most generous old age pension law in,the world/ "We believe," he writes, "that the remarkable success of th,e social policies of New Zealand are due to three factors. First, they are a coherent, closely knit" people. When they be^an these reforms a generation ago they numbered only a million. It was as though the State of Oretrpn were isolated in the midst of the Pacific Ocean."