INTERPRETING NEW ZEALAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22742, 30 November 1935, Page 4

INTERPRETING NEW ZEALAND

MR MULGAN’S DISCERNING BOOK

" A Pilgrim’s Way In New Zealand." By Alan Mulgan. Illustrated. Oxford; the University Press (Mr Humphrey Milford). 14s 6d.

The dominant and impressive note in “A Pilgrim’s Way in New Zealand” is that which might be expected of the author of “ Spur of Morning ” —a deep and perceptive love of his own country. If Mr Mulgan has written with gentle emotion of “ Home,” he is not of that curious company of New Zealanders horn and bred who feel themselves expatriates in this land. New Zealand is, for him; the first and last love, and he comes to this survey of it as an unashamed admirer:—

Here, within this strip of land buffeted by the wide-ranging might of the ocean, is every variety of landscape save desert —fertile plains and pealis of perpetual snow, drowsy land-locked bays and long surf-beaten sands, mountain-encircled lakes of marvellous beauty, pastoral areas of almost English tidiness, and sweeps of tussock and scrub, active volcanoes, great glaciers and fiords, hot springs and ice-cold rivers, lovely mountain flowers and superb sub-tropical forests. It is as if Providence had organised in one little country an exhibition of Nature’s beauty and strangeness.

But “A Pilgrim’s Way in New Zealand is not all panegyric. Mr Mulgan, while giving full marks to the land for natural beauty and variety, remains critical of its people and institutions where he considers they merit only muted approval. Architecture, as he emphasises in relation to Auckland, has been going through an ugly and depressing phase since the charm of the old colonial houses was displaced by bow-windowed wooden villas and stanardised bungalows. Even now, with some quickening of the conscience of the community to a realisation of more shapely building forms and the place of townplanning, 'progress is discouraging. One may question, however, whether Mr Mulgan is fair in describing as an “ obsession ” the regulations which require wide footpaths and streets of a chain’s width in new developments. In an age_ of fastwheeled traffic something of the intimacy of narrow, winding streets and mossy thoroughfares must oe sacrificed to utilitarianism. On another aspect of New Zealand ignorance, thoughtlessness, or improvidence, the spoliation of the country and destruction of its natural fauna by axe and gun and the importation of creatures that have become a pest in our prodigal clime, Mr Mulgan speaks with feeling. Much of our forest glory has "pone into timber and vanished in smoke. Surrounded by great profusion, the older generation cut and burnt without thought Few cared particularly whether the hula, the bird dedicated to chiefs in Maori society, was preserved or not, and now there is not a pair to be found to place in one of the many bird sanctuaries. The weka, one of the wingless birds, was hunted down because it was thought to eat the eggs ot the imported pheasant. Deer were imported to provide sport, and now they are such a menace to forests and alpine flora that shooting parties have been organised to thin them out ...

“ Heaven only knows,” the author writes, relating the melancholy history of _ the country’s middle generation enthusiasm for destruction, “ what price this country will eventually pay for its devotion to British blood sports.” A National Pastime •

The old-time legislator, who sweetened his constituency with roads, railways, and bridges, represents another New Zealand historical feature to which Mr Mulgan draws attention. He considers that Wellington is to-day “ the centre of an amount of importunity and wire-pulling that to English eyes perhaps seems disproportionate,” and the Government still has a superfluity of mendicants:—

Waiting upon Ministers in deputations is a national habit and pastime. In the good old days of plentiful loose money, organised assaults on Ministers were recognised tactics, and it used to be remarked how often these descents upon the capital coincided with a race meeting at Trentham. . . . Nor is the New Zealander in_ the habit of thinking out political principles. Often he is a creature of charming inconsistency. His conviction that his Government is the worst in the world does not £ revent him from turning to it, for elp in many of his difficulties, and a conference will quite calmly turn from a demand for Government economy _to a request for substantial financial assistance.

Such pertinent updn several amusing or provoking conditions of New Zealand community existence help to enliven the pages of Mr Mulgan’s book, but its principal concern is not with politics, architecture or the deficiencies in the university system. New Zealand as a place to travel in. New Zealand as a nlace to live in, is Mr Mulgau’s theme, and in this book he discovers for the visitor from overseas a country that, indeed, by natural right, fills the place he claims for it. From the north to the south the author makes a leisurely tour, revealing a little of local,history, a great deal of scenic grandeur and loveliness. and a shrewd assessment of the people’s characteristics by the way. It is a kindly book that he has written, an informative book, and an understanding. It is not comprehensive, but then no claim is made for it a s a guide book in the exact sense. One may complain that some interesting and noteworthy tourist features, as, for instance, the Eglinton Valley drive, have received little or no attention. On the other hand, it may be said that to suggest the spirit as well as the physical characteristics of the Dominion, as Mr Mulgan has done, ig of more importance from the point of view of the English visitor, who can collect a mass of detail from the tourist bureaux. Roundly considered, “A Pilgrim's Way In New Zealand ” must be allowed to take position as the best book of general interest on New Zealand that has appeared in years. If it scarcely challenges in literary distinction Pember Reeves’s classic, it certainly betters Dr Harrop’s recent tourist compendium, and as a discerning, responsible interpreter of New Zealand life, Mr Mulgan admits no contemporary peer. It is inexplicable that Mr Mulgan should use the term Australasia, which is so unfavourably regarded, and surprising and unpardonable in his omissions is the exclusion of Stewart Island from notice. The book is agreeably written, and eloquent of the author’s_ interest in verse, but occasionally, as in the second paragraph on page 67, his construction becomes involved and clumsy. The book is delightfully produced and contains excellent plates, including a reproduction in colour of one of Rata Lovell-Smith’s characteristic New Zealand landscapes. J. M.