TERM "ALL BLACKS"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22172, 27 July 1935, Page 16

TERM "ALL BLACKS"

MISUNDERSTANDING .CAUSED MEANS OF CORRECTION "I quite appreciate the criticism, but the solution is not as difficult as the critic seems to' imagine," said the Hon. Eliot Davis last night, .jrhen referring to the use of the name "All Blacks" as referred to in yesterday's H rat ALP Mr. Davis said that he had a fairly comprehensive idea of English atmosphere. This his critic apparently lacked. In reoent years he had spent a large amount of time travelling through England, and had oome definitely to the conclusion that, so far as the Dominions were concerned, th<? English people generally ware not interested. The recent remarks of Lord Bledisloe and Sir. Forbes regarding the British Cabinet substantiated that; and what applied to the British Cabinet ■was infinitely more applicable to the groat mass of the people of the United Kingdom. It had to be remembered that there ■were upward of 50,000,000 people in England, all of whom were potential customers of the Dominion, but. while 90 per cent of them would be interested in the results of the football tour, less than 10 per cent would know what country was represented by the All Blacks. li the High Commissioner stood outside New Zealand House in the Strand, he would find that not one person in the first hundred whom he questioned would understand what the term All Blacks referred to. If he went to the Midlands be would not find one in a thousand. "As regards English press publicity," Mr. Davis said, "it would be a simple matter of .arrangement to have the description New Zealander used throughout the tour." The grounds on which the critic had based his contentions in that respect were weak. British newspapers, if approached in the proper manner, would help rather than hinder the cause which he had advocated. The extracts from the London Tunes were no answer to the argument. \ "However," added Mr. Davis, "I was not referring to London." There were countless workers in England whose very lives consisted of going to work on Monday and waiting for the football match on Saturday. Millions of these people bad never heard of New Zealand, and his i 'fervent wish," as mentioned by his critic, was to convey to them that the same country which produced these footballers was capable of producing the finest lamb; butter and other produce in the world.