BIT OF A SNOB

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3177, 2 October 1942, Page 3

BIT OF A SNOB

“ROMMEL SMACKED”

THE NEW ZEALANDERS CANADIAN PAPER’S OPINION How New Zealanders are being presented to Canadians is revealed in an article in a Montreal publication, The Standard Magazine, by Leslie Garden. The writer makes a thorough analysis of the country that produced “The Men Who Smacked Rommel,’’ as he terms the New Zealanders. His remarks are interesting, although some misconceptions would raise a smile, such as his statement under “The Shaky Isles,’’ dealing with earthquakes, that “you can lie in bed in the main street in Wellington to see the walls waving any morning.” it has an old-fashioned sound'but the recipe is really modern enough to he repeated: You pour out a heavy spot of expatriated English, another of Scotch, put in a dribble of Irish and just a taste of Welsh plus a few individualistic virtues and failings and you have —a New Zealander, 'by golly,” says the writer. “The New , Zealander is that fellow who has been prominent in stopping Mr Rommel’s merry dash into E£ypt and who knows where else . . . “As the New Zealanders did before,' they went into this war with both feet, introducing conscription at its and marshalling their industrial capacities to the limit. However, not very much industrially can be expected of a people, who, numbering about 1,600,000, inhabit a country ap- . proximating the size of the British : Isles and who have in the past put much or most of their energy into agricultural production. Their main part in the struggle is being played in the firing line and when Mr, Churchill paid tribute to them he; stressed that, despite the threat to their own country 'by the Japanese, they had not recalled or in any way weakened their overseas forces. ' ! Attitude Typical “That attitude is quite typical of them-. To the Maorilander Britain is ; still ‘Home,’ even if he has never seen it, and a menace to Britain is just as poignant to him as an imminent threat to his own country. “Distinguished visitors from ‘Home’ make a point of telling him that ‘The Pearl of the Pacific’ is ‘more English than England.’ It is, of course, nothing of ths sort, but the New Zea- ■ lander, highly conscious politically and socially, is in some respects in- i - genuous. He eats that sort of guff 1

with gusto and unless he has changed since I knew him at close quarters constant repetition of that same apertif does not interfere with his appetite. He sees Great Britain as the acme of perfection in a sinful world. She has never done a wrong thing. If you were to hint anything different you would very likely get your head punched without any explanations.

“A spirit of that kind produces good soldiers, and, as most people know, the 10 per cent, of its population that. New Zealand sent overseas in the last war made a name for themselves from Gallipoli to France. They differed from their Australian cousins in lots of ways, being less spectacular, less noisy, much less cohesive, much more conventional. The middle-class English looked upon them as ‘gentlemen.’ “A Snob” “ Asked to select the weakest point in the New Zealanders’ armour I should class him as a snob. If he thinks a person has a claim to that nebulous thing called breeding he will readily overlook his faults. So-called Oxford accents are as thick in the place as wool on a sheep’s back. .He is also a bit of a hypocrite, believing that the worst of sin consist! of being found out.

“The world’s heaviest- consumer of hard liquor he comprises with his

conscience by a system of local voting which places the ban of prohibition on certain towns —yet leaves- them with breweries going full blast within their borders (they have to drive across the boundary before returning to deliver an order), wholesale liquor stores that are supposed to sell nothing less than a dozen bottles of hard stuff or wine, and licensed hotels within half an hour’s drive. Very amusing perhaps, but quite ineffectual—and quite typical of the New Sealander’s efforts to save his soul.”