NEW ZEALAND'S NARROWNESS.

NZ Truth, Issue 406, 5 April 1913, Page 8

NEW ZEALAND'S NARROWNESS.

AN AUSTRALIAN ASPECT Of IT. BRAG, BLOW, BOOST, BLUSTER, AND BAD BEER. IS LONDON iS- BIG AS AUCKLAND? '•' :.':'■■ (By "Sydaeylte" m Sydney *'Truth.")

"No Australian money taken!" "No : Australians need apply!" These are the welcoming warnings that greet the Australian when first lie sets foot upon New Zealand's soil. These are ■ the greetings '.extended 1 most .cordially to Australians by New Zealanders; First, an insult', an insinuation that one is/ a thief; a coiner of base metal, a.n utterer, of : fraudulent money. And this from the Dominion that mouths a keen desire for close commer 7 , cial reciprocity with the Commonwealth! Then the rebuff, the cold shoulder, the cut impolite, the ostracism, . the blackballing. LestV it should be thought that this summing-up has been an experienceindividual, peculiar, and singular to the writer, let the reader inquire of a fellowAustralian concerning his treatment m ."God's own. country"---of which Seddonian sententiousness more anon !-^and the verdict will be precisely and identically similar. That is, of course,; unless the Australian m question happens to have been a tourist, holiday-inaking m Maoriland, when the verdict will be that even Switzerland and the opulent Orient, , with their everlasting drone of "Bachsheesh 1 " cannot compare with the isiancls that Kipling so unblushingly apostrophised as "Last, loneliest, loveliest, exqvisite, apart!" Verily, Riidyard, thou hast much to answer for! As for the '.'tips" question, they. say that New Zealand carriers, porters, and "boots"- have refined the co-operative and mutual definition of the unsuspecting stranger to a very fine art. You are a tourist; You confide your bags and baggage without suspicion to an hotel porter. When the time comes to depart from your caravanserai watch carefully how the porter places 'trie labels on your luggage ere you shake the volcanic soil, (or street sweepings)'- of Auckland from your feet, and prepare to tread the lavaland of Rotorua. The position and situation of the labels correspond with the degree of your liberality. If your "pour boire" has been generous, y.our labels will be right-side up with care, exact, precise, a» they should be. Should you have been as : „-..'. ll , MINDFtri. OF THE BAWBEBS as a Dunedinite, your label will be wrong-side down with even greater care. Perhaps your "tip",, has been considered only middling: then your label will be placed "squewhlff," diagonally. This is the sign and synibol telephony, covering many miles of, space, arid always understood at the; other end! Your reception at your tourist destination. by those who live upon the traveller .will- reflect the measure of your munificence by this label language.' There are, indeed, dexterous developments of this symbolic system that are practically infinite for all the purposes of the close co-operation of the carrying confraternity. Occasionally' the symbols arc assisting and valuable to the tourist. Should you be journeying to ,a ;"dry" district, and should you be ' accustomed to taking something with your - ginger ale, the hotel porter, for a •> consideration, will convey an indication of your liquid requirements by "means of the label on your valise. All this is done for "tipping," the tribute the tourist pays. Then, as to the rejection, contemptuous but decisive, of Australian coin. New Zealanders prate loudly of their Imperialism. They are the Empire-to be sure. Sometimes you are led to imagine from their protestations of all British brotherhood, tha^^^^ believe, with. Napoleonic arrogance, that they are the Empire! Yet to them Australians are canaille arid their money base! They will accept with greater avidity a single Canadian dollar than th% would six Australian shillings. The writer has even seen a Corhmonwealth halfpenny refused of acceptance until finally it was pouched with the remark, "Well, it will be no great loss!" Australian gold— sovereigns and halves— will be accepted; but of silver and bron/.e of the Commonwealth theywlll have none. Thus is their rapturous rage for "reciprocity" put into action; The writer has /seen an Auckland housewife, dirty, draggled, and dishevelled, chase the full length of a long street after a'baker who had given ncr m change an Australian- "bob, ";' she crying vociferously the while, "You have given me an Australian shilling: '—as if. the man had robbed her. / Such a -scene;; perchance, is rare, because a large pro portion of the Auckland women leavs their bakers and' butchers unpaid— the women want the money: for what they so inelegantly style "the pickshuros'.^ Picture shows and shop windows -occupy most hours of an Auckland woman's day and night. Munching lollies while gazing at moving pictures is the average Auckland woman's . conception of Paradise. Many of them get their husband's wages at 5 o'clock on Friday evening. At 9 a.m. on Saturday they haven't got a penny, save those they have set a.o:rt for the "pickshures" and the draper. But EVEN THOSE PENNILESS WOMEN would not accept an Australian shilling! Let us come 'now to Australians who arrive m. New Zealand with the intention of settling down or working there. '"'No Australians need apply!" In case it may be said that in 'these remarks the" writer suffers from atrabiliousness or has been merely one unfortunate individual, seek the truth from any other Australian who has gone to Maorlland to work. He may be. an expert tradesman, a master of his craft, sober, reliable, energetic, industrious; but, when seeking employment—it matters little m what line— let him not produce Australian credentials or "references," or refer to the fact that he is an Australian, or he will be rejected. This is no isolated experience. It is the general, almost universal, rule In all

occupations and all businesses. It is true that In South Africa a few years ago the doings /of some individuals of the * later Australian contingents to the war gained . Australia a' bad" name, and that for some time m- that country Australians were looked upon askance. But even m South i Africa, the feeling then about and against Australians was never so pronounced | and/-; insurmountable as the average New Zealanders antipathy; to Australians todasr; /'This peculiar attitude; is the" more remarkable from the fact that m Australia. New ZeaJahders are received with open' arms, and accepted as cousins, if" not, as brothers. The writer has m mind, for example, numerous New Zealanders. who- now/ enjoy, • and have for years enjoyed, good billets m Australia. But there is no reciprocity m this direction m New Zealand. This antipathy extends to all and every - class— except the moneyspending, tourist. ; As for the daily papers ;of the r Dpmini6n,, they preach ; through^' platitudinous phraseology the ; principles';, of:, patriotism— that .'final . re - fugel-^and print pages of , their vaunted Britisherism and Imperialism; but their P?tty pardchfallsm causes them to enjoy nothing with greater relish than to DEFILE AND DEPRECIATE AUSTRALIANS :' .. and everything Australian. "But you're 4'l.bla.ck over there!" said; an Auckland woman to; an Australian when speaking of the Commonwealth. An Australian arriving m New Zealand to work 1 soon learns two' or three 'things. First of all, he. learns that -the latest new chum fresh from "Home" \ (and some of them are very new and very fresh!) has a better chance of getting a billet than an Australian. Next, he learns to refrain from saying.that. that he comes from Australia, and finally, grown wise, he learns that m New Zealand, and particularly m Auckland, "kissing goes by, favor." New Zealand (Auckland -especially) is dominated by ; cliques, class, and coteries. These controlling forces v are political, ecclesiastical, or proincially , national. It was a "constant gibe against the late Ministry »f Joseph Ward by .the. then Massey Opposition and present Government that it .filled the public service, with Its friends and. favorites. Nepotism was openly charged. The spoils were said to be to the victors. Ward is now out St office, and Massey is m. The boot is on the other foot now! Down South if you are a Scot your foot is on your native heath,' or m Canterbury j^ou are all right if you are a Man of Kent or a Devonian. Elsewhere the Church is the tower of strength to the wculd^be sealer of the social and industrial ladder. Go 'to church if you want to get a billet. ' But j if yoiSi want to keep the billet it is not i only |ecessary. to go to church, but to take an active part m all church activities. 'Join the choir, and the>various societies connected: with the churqh, flaunt your piety (even, if. pretence), and your industrial redemption is complete,' -also your social salvation.; . ■ Coming from Australia the. traveller 'in I most instances lands at Auckland, . and, as first impressions count ' for very much, some short references to that city of great pretensions may be made. It is a city m the making— and the precess of Manufacture Is deucedly. dirty, disagreeable, arid uncomfortable. An Australian says: '-it is the last place God made, •: and He hasn't ye* had time to finish '.it." "Being a city m the making, Auckland is distinctly filthy, hot merely because it is being made! but by reason of the UNCLEANLY HABITS OF ITS ■f CITIZENS. Clay 'beds are being disturbed by the.

shorels and picks of numerous navvies; paving on footpaths and between the kerbs Is m slow progress; the excavator digs and the tunneller burrows with mere or less strenuousness; that perpetual peripatetic ( prowler *of all* cities, the hole- ; maker and the trench-digger, pursues his humorous game of providing unsuspected pitfalls for the wayfarer; hills are being cut away; and possibly m it all is some consistent • plan. Heaven knows! Tet it is a dirty and disagreeable process. The genius that is making Auckland may be described as 2 per cent, of inspiration and 98 per sent, of perspiration..? Auckland is the dirtiest and most backward large centre m; New Zealand. Tou only want to live there, for a month or two to find that, out. And this ] despite the fact that. Nature endowed" its surroundings with much scenic beauty. Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin are smaller, but infinitely cleaner. The dust fiend m Auckland is more deeply and disastrously diabolical than even m Nicholson - street or Brunswick - road, Melbourne, and this despite a Juggernaut demon of a tramcar water-sprinkler on the main streets, said demon;, belching forth Niagaras of water to convert - the dust which thickly caps the" roadways into rivers of fluctuant mud. .In , the gusty Saharas of dust, meat Is. carried m uncovered carts, alongside of which frequently travels an equally, uncovered load of filthy and putrid stable 'refuse. "Keep your city clean!" is *the sardonically, sarcastic . injunction iplaced by the. powers that be over wire/ basket? m the streets intended to serve as receptacles for rubbish. The streets and pavements are littered with, paper, banana^ arid Orange skins, and even the sweepings from shops, and eloquently testify to the disregard of the warning. The cars of the electric tram monopoly (given "as a franchise ;to an English company) arc* untidy and ; unutterably, noisy, killing or-, dinary-voiced conversation m the streets. And the slums! There are slums and rookeries disgraceful, disgusting, galore! One finds In Newton (not ITew-town. but named like Sir Isaac), In Ponsonby, m Arch Hill (suburbs' 1 of Auckland) slums 'deadlier, drearier, dismaller than those of the Rocks or Wexford-street area or, Sydney m the bygone days: Much of this discreditable condition is due to the GREED OF GRASPING LANDLORDS— some of : "our leading citizens"— in consort or collusion "with negligent authorities. Yet no little of it is the' direct result of the incredibly filtliy habits of the people/Some wit has said that 'the path of civilisation is .strewn with' tin cans and empty bottles. If he had -added cabbage stumps and kitchen refuse he would have adequately Pictured the backyards of much of Auckland, which, by this reasoning, is m the forefront of modern civilisation! Women— not only of the very poor— are as..' unwashed, untended, ; as scantily clothed, as mannerless, as 'their neglected offspring scurrying like scared rabbits. That is the backdoor view— when the women' are at home. Mostly ithey are nor ;'at home. One cannot be surprised at /that. 'Mostly they are trapesing the sixests, clad m peacock : plumes, or patronising the "pick--shure" palaces aforesaid. A caustic critic has said of Auckland: -'It is a place of bad beer, blow, brag, and bluster!" The: beer certainly i? responsible for a lot. Drunks m the main streets are m legion, and "dead marines,": deposited prominently and promiscuously 'm the i thoroughfares and on vacant spaces, tell their tales of street-imbibation. And the fleas! Auckland's fleas are, ■world-famed. An American visitor— ho must' have been a Yank! — asserts that 'while m Auckland he chained , a local flea to his hotel! bedpost to guard his valuables as he slept l Thus eVen Auckland; fleas . have' their utility! Conjoined with the condition of .dirt, there Is parochial prejudice, insular Jealousy, and much ignorance. "The finest building m the world," said an Auckland woman, the other day, of the new Post Office m that, city; another woman (supposed to have passed the sixth standard) "seriously asked,. "Is London as, big as Auckland?" Auckland, truly, Is a city m the making, but it is being made with a yardstick. And Auckland people, when they boast and boost, would do wejl to remember that a hen never cackles till she has delivered the goods! . "