MRS. VEST’S CRITICISM

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 53, 13 February 1934, Page 5

MRS. VEST’S CRITICISM

REPLY BY NEW ZEALANDER. “New Zealand is a small country, but that is no excuse for its being peopled with small minds: which remark arises after reading Mrs Vest’s interview on New Zealand and the reply to it,” writes a correspondent. “Surely if we are prepared to listen to comjiliments about ourselves — and we gobble them up like a shark does a Alanly bather—we ought at least to take less kind remarks with a grin. “A little frank criticism, particularly when, as in this case, it is invited, should be welcomed. We are accustomed to itinerants lauding our country and our people with all the superlatives of an American film producer and then, on reaching the haven of other shores, revealing their true impressions. Is Mrs Vest not rather to oe praised for her courage in telling tis the truth as sho sees it?

“New Zealand is not really important to anyone but Now Zealanders, and there is no reason why ignorance of it. sliould bo considered a sin. Yet bow often do we read indignant examples of English ignorance of this speck iu the Pacific. One that I particularly remember scoffed at an English crossword puzzle-maker’s foolishness in giving ‘Polish bird’ as the description of kiwi. Why, the: bird belonged not to Poland but to God's own country • Ho had never, it seems, heard of Kiwi boot polish. “I grant that Mrs Vest’s views of New Zealand men are mainly true, and, with great temerity, being a man, uphold her where women are concerned. Too many women seem to think that, having strung a frieze across their midriff, attached a flying buttress to the rear and a sausage roll on each shoulder and smeared on some lipstick that does not match, they are entitled to preen their feathers on having achieved ‘chick.’ A little more of the restraint evident in English and American (not motion picture) magazines and a lot more appreciation of the beauty of line as distinct from decoration would improve them in the eves of at least one New Zealander and probably many visitors.”