AS SEEN BY OTHERS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 28 January 1925, Page 6

AS SEEN BY OTHERS.

WE “SHOOT HOT AIR.”

AN IMMIGRANTS DISCLOSURES

That wish given to posterity by Robert Burns is sometimes fulfilled, and we are given an opportunity to see om - selves as others see us, says the Auckland Star. In a Saskatoon (this is a place in Canada) paper of recent date there appeared the following headlines in that magnificent black type usually associated with the Press of the States: “He moved to New Zealand —Is Sorry Former Local Detective hinds Conditions Not What He Expected. Relow this impressive statement came a wonderful disclosure: — “Ear pastures looked green to. Detective Angus Sutherland, of the Saskatoon Police Department, when he packed up his wife, family, and belongings, and moved to New Zealand last fall*. Now he’s wishing he were back in Saskatoon. In a. letter to Inspector Albert Milne here, the former detective says conditions in New Zealand are not what he expected. It’s summer down there now, and so. hot that milk and meat are spoiled unless used immediately on delivery. Rutter is hard to get. “ ‘The railways here are laughable, ho writes. ’Wo. live- 110 miles iiom Auckland, and it fakes 10 hours to get to that city by train. The Yankees have nothing on New 'Zealanders for shooting hot air,’ he adds. ‘They are also slow to make friends with newcomers.’ ’ 1 , “Mr. Sutherland believes he wilt return io Canada soon.’’ . New Zealanders will appreciate the “hot air” remarks, and the interesting assertions about their slowness to make friends. Possibly the trouble is that we take people as we find them and choose our friends accordingly. It would he interesting to know just what happened to out immigrants on that ten-hour journey of 110 miles. While realising that time is usually no consideration to the New Zealand railwavs, we would be surprised to hear that any of our local trains behaved quite as badly as that. Still, after being used to “them there” fast Canadian expresses, travelling would seem a bit slow in this “burg.” In passing over the ridiculous remark that butter cannot he procured in an essentially butter-producing land (and in the country at that), and also ignoring the glimpse of the obvious provided in the statement that meat won’t keep long in hot even in Saskatoon), it might" he remarked that such delightful disclosures are not new in American or Canadian papers. The Americans are the worst offenders. In their dailies appear stories about New Zealanders carrying clubs, and tapping one another playfully on the headaltogether living in a generally uncivilised state. Others, again, depict the shores of the Waitemata as haunts of nasty brown cannibals, who run wild with spears, attacking the Niagara and such like vessels, with fatal results for the tourists who happen to have risked their lives and come to these shores. Still, paragraphs of this nature, especially' those written by people who have chosen our land as a home, make interesting reading. They are often so illuminating.