The Evening Star THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 1941. CHANCED PERSPECTIVES.

Evening Star, Issue 23833, 13 March 1941, Page 8

The Evening Star THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 1941. CHANCED PERSPECTIVES.

Mb Fbank Milneb’s spirited onslaught on opinions expressed in a book published three years ago, ‘ Contemporary Now Zealand,’ illustrates how perspectives have changed during that short period under the influence of sharp, tragic realities. We do not imply that Mr Milner’s perspectives have changed; we can believe with a great deal of certainty that they have not; but the whirligig of time has brought iii extreme revenges for no small company of others. The period immediately before the present war was one in which the way to appear “ advanced ” and to gain attention was to question and cast witty doubts' upon old faiths and loyalties. The Empire—or the Commonwealth, as the new generation preferred to call it, and for a long time they had .been the same thing—had had its devotion. The age had heard enough of the merits of that strong parent and protector; it would bo a new game to probe a little into its faults. The diversion was more natural in the years that directly followed the Yoguo for “debunking” of national heroes, and there was a serious case to be made for it if the faults might be thereby amended. The new vogue was mixed up with idealism, with a wholly unquestioning faith in that League of Nations and “collective security ” which proved themselves broken reeds, and it was mixed up to a very large extent with politics. It inspired a great many statements which, unchallenged or hardly challenged at the time when they were first expressed, because of the degree to which they were then part of the time spirit, have a singularly unconvincing and not seldom a repollant sound today, ‘ Contemporary New Zealand,’ the book to which Mr Milner referred, was compiled by sundry writers for the 1938 conference on British Commonwealth Relations held in Sydney. Its object was explained to bo “ to furnish a general survey of New Zealand’s national interests and economic and social life, together with some account of her relations to the rest of the British Commonwealth.” It is eloquent of the extent to which the depreciatory fashion had ■ penetrated that expressions of opinion to provoke Mr Milner’s or anyone elso’s natural wrath should have entered into such a book, bearing the imprimatur of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. Mr Milner has expressed his surprise that Mr Dowmo Stewart, as the president of that most admirable society, should have passed it. Mr Stewart did protect himself to the extent of this disclaimer, which he makes in the book’s preface: “ To me it appears that there is a degree of danger in searching minutely into the advantages and dis-' advantages of the existing Commonwealth association. For such a process is apt to concentrate on the material aspects of the problem, and to draw up a balance sheet of -gains and losses' in which little count is taken of the intangible Icbalistic and spiritual factors. The anrtomist of the human body cannot take count of life itself even if he he a viviscctionist.” Another protective statement is made in the intimation of an “ introductory note ” that “ it must not be assumed that all contributors concur in all the views expressed in the book,” The views themselves quoted by Mr Milner, with a dislike that will be shared widely to-day, must appear less heinous and less important when it is seen by reference to the volume that they refer generally to partial and but tentatively discussed aspects of its subject. Dr Beaglehole, from whom most of them are cited, puts himself right on the main issue when his argument is concluded by him as follows: “ AVe are British, and proud of it; and, feeling a. common nationality, we feel the necessity of a common political system. ... And

furthermore—it is possible that our Now Zealander may add—in tho existence of our common and co-ordinated political system wo see a chief guarantee of world peace; to depart from it is to go forth to seek destruction. But oven if that were not so, the absolute value remains. Over absolute values there is no arguing.” As to the quotation cited from Dr J. N. Findlay, which was a quotation in the book cited, with approval, by Dr Beaglehole, it is worth while to give it in full. The “ fundamental disease ” of the Now Zealanders, it pronounced, “is a form of idealism; they have made fairy vows and are the victims of ghostly loyalties. Their higher energies are expended in vivifying a system of phantasies and are unavailable for the uses of ordinary life. Tho object of this idealism is a country which never existed, but whose features bear some resemblance to those of a certain geographical reality, and the ways and institutions of whose inhabitants bear some resemblance to those of a certain historical social class. It is, in short, a visionary and idealised England which absorbs the emotions and energies of New Zealand, and which keeps it permanently in a state of fceblo-mindcd-ncss and idealism.” The argument as herein contained is an old one, that New Zealanders in a general way suffer a loss from a disposition to accept thinking that is done by people in England instead of thinking moro for themselves. With the argument goes tho suggestion that tho England New Zealanders worship is a “ country which never existed,” and that suggestion,

superficially at least, is true. It is a dream England—-not the England of this or tho other party government, or tho England with imperfections such as all ■human establishments show, but an England still in the making, with all her uoblo traditions to be guides for her future, that Englishmen also adore. AVitness Mr Masefield’s verses on tho faith that moved them in tho last war: And died (uucouthly, most) in foreign lauds For some idea but dimly understood Of an English city never built by hands, AA’hich love of England prompted and made good. In a deep sense, that dream England is already' tho real England. Peace-time deciders not a few, and without reference to names Mr Milner lias brought forward, seemed most anxious to suggest tho contrary. AVhcrc Kipling knew and proclaimed that England was not what to cursory eyes she might seem, but something better and uobier, they gave tho impression of being unable, if they were not actually unwilling, to believe anything of the kind. Now, in tho strain of war, tho identity of the dream .England with the existing England has been proved again, so that all tho world except Totalitarianism acknowledges it.