"LIVES THERE A MAN—?"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22320, 18 January 1936, Page 17

"LIVES THERE A MAN—?"

Sir, —Your correspondent W. A. Taylor, writing anent heather at the National Park, pens some cheap jibes at the flora of this country, which lead one to believe that he (or is it "she"?) is not a New Zealander. If that is so, his letter is an impertinence. Should ho be native born he is sutfcring from hereditary homesickness, a curious malady, very prevalent here. It is characterised by a craving for some distant land, usually England, Ireland or Scotland, a tendency to try and convert every part of the globe into a replica of the yearned-for spot and, most objectionable symptom of all, an intense dislike, sometimes approaching mania, for everything that comes from the native soil. For the New Zealander there is a sure cure for this complaint. Let your correspondent get together the necessary fare (there should be a national fund for this purpose) and go to the land of his attraction. Let him stay there three months (more, if his complaint is deepseated), imbibing his fill of rain, fog, sleet, snow and being continually nauseated by strange ways, ideas, tongues and snobbish distinctions. All yearning for tho alien land will disappear and lie will take the first opportunity of getting back to his homeland, content with it as Nature made it, and desirous no longer of spreading exotic weeds over its liills and valleys. If ho is not one of the elect, let him follow out the first part of the cure, hut cease there, also stop there. This is New Zealand, not Scotland, despite the efforts of exiles and apostates, and I. have an idea it will become more so as time goes on and Nature has her way with those yet to be born. William G. Deochar.