“N.Z. AT THE END OF SYDNEY BRIDGE’

Opunake Times, 31 March 1939, Page 4

“N.Z. AT THE END OF SYDNEY BRIDGE’

ENGLISHMEN DON’T KNOW BETTER

SAYS NEW ZEALANDER

Thu London Djli.v Express h;

c, cued its columns lo “readers wnu ,iuvc something to say. ' One reader v. lio this week had quite a Jot to say was Stanley Brogden, a New Zeu loader, who has lived fur six years m Loudoa.

f'ruiu his experiences as a, Lor, s.uea lean, magazine editor, advertising n anagoi and reporter, he claimed to i jiow tile mind of Britain, lie wrote;

“The contempt of Londoners for their ancient monuments has 'appalled no; the lilth of Manchester staggered me; the thought of 2,000,000 uuem ployed has kept me awake —because lot one British citizen in live think.-, about them five minutes in a year.

“If I ask a boy of fifteen the popu Jation of Estonia he may tell me to the nearest thousand. If I tell him that Isew Zealand is at the eastern end of the Sydney Bridge h- accepts the He as geography.

“I have spent six years trying to tcaeh the British people I have mot ;be elements of Empire geography and history. I have spent thirty minutes it. a grocer’s shop trying to persuade a butter salesman that the Argentine has not been granted Dominion status. - “The other day a New Zealand friend of mine and I wore complimented on our excellent English. We promptly took the cue and talked for twenty minutes in a gibberish New Zealand tongue made up of all the Maori town and river names wc could think of—Waipukurau, Papatnetoc,

Kumara, Waikato, Kororareka. Our audience wcro fascinated by the 1 quidity of this Empire language.

“Mon who boast an Oxofrd M.A. have ref used to believe my story that Now Zealand produced £100,090,009 in virgin gold in a series of gold rushes.

“I have listened to Mr. Baldwin, as he was then, saying the British work nan’s standard of living and conditions of labour have no equal in the world.

“Then I had a drink with Dominion friends who told me they haven t been able to afford a holiday since they came to England to work; idial they spend fifty hours a week earning three pounds.

“We colonials keep one eye on Britain sleeping and waking. Our Press in crammed with British news, fiction end history. “Wc come home to find a standard of living which was abandoned by our grandfathers and one adult per>..cn a month who can recite the correct list of Dominions. “Britain needs Empire consciousness.”