MENTAL LOCALISATION

Evening Post, Issue 20, 23 July 1935, Page 8

MENTAL LOCALISATION

"What do they know of England who only England know?", When Rudyard Kipling asked this question last century, he implied a defect of British political leaders, which defect (Lord Blcdisloe points put) still exists. The remedy that everybody prescribes is travel; and it is a good remedy; New Zealand wants British visitors, political or otherwise. But there are travel and travel. From the standpoint of political understanding of a country, one political leader could sit down in England (or New Zealand) and study sound literature about New Zealand (or England) and could thereby acquire more statesmanlike knowledge than another politician would acquire by visiting the country and rushing through it. But if a statesman comes to a country with an observant eye and a leisured itinerary, and does not rely on biased mentors, then travel becomes a great political asset. One of the advantages of a personal visit is the chance to know "atmosphere" and acquire "local colour," but attempts of hasty observers to reproduce local colour and local thought are often misleading. It is probable that politicians on the rim of the wheel are at least as backward in Empire-breadth of thought as are those at the hub. To be oneeyed is not a monopoly of the United Kingdom. A 9ense of proportion is no scarcer - there than here; and the narrowing effects of the party system are at least as marked here as there. A night in London when air-raid ; drill is on, with masks served out, would be a valuable bit of local colour for those New Zealanders who think that British farm policy has no self-defence ingredient. In that sense,. New Zealanders are not air-minded. There is an England they don't know.