PRAISE FROM CANADIANS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3898, 27 November 1928, Page 17

PRAISE FROM CANADIANS.

NEW ZEALAND CITIES AND AUSTRALIA’S DESTINY.

By

L. W. G.

Tributes to the outer Empire in the South Seas occasion nothing but a sense of appreciation, and, perhaps, a glow of forgiveable pride when they come from a native of the British Isles or even a foreigner. But when they are expressed by, an observant son of a sister dominion that. is in the market Competing for immigrants, trade and pride of place with the country compared with his own to the latter’s disparagement, the feeling is frankly one of surprise. And when these remarks are made, not on the shores of a land where the visitor has been feted as a guest, but in the face of the natural scepticism (to put it mildly), of his own people, the man mutters them is to be admired for his honesty and courage. No country is more jealous of its reputation than Canada, and no country —excepting, perhaps some of the South American Republics and the minor Balkan States —is surer that its destiny is a great one. There are no people more certain that theirs is the best among the dominions than the Canadians, and no people more ready to compare their state with that of other countries with a sense of self-r-atisfac-’ tion. By this Ido not mean that the Canadians are objectionably blatant in their attitude and that they are readier than some other young people to consider themselves the chosen of the Lord. But they have as much egoism as anybody else, and are consequently a trifle upset when told that their advantages are second to those of other members of the Empire. Nowhere is the supreme faith in Canada as the world’s coming nation more pronounced than in sections of the west, and nowhere is there often a more pronounced absence of the realisation that one land cannot possibly lead in every way. It should not do any harm to the West, then that two of its prominent citizens should have returned, one from New Zealand and the other from Australia both cheerfully admitting that there are good things to be found across the equator, and, in one case, drawing comparisons distinctly favourable to Australia as against his own country.

Professor W. F. Osborne, of the University of Manitoba, spent some months in .New Zealand, and he should do something towards turning the attention of Canadians towards that dominion as a holiday place of interest. Professor Osborne, who is the author of several authoritative works on classical subjects, has been telling of his happy impressions of the “baby sister” before service clubs and other organisations, while the other man referred to has come out in the press with the declaration that Australia is the coming nation of the world. He is Mr James Simpson, also of Winnipeg, and the more weight is lent to his opinion by the fact that he has just completed a tour of the world, embracing the East as well as Europe. “ Working conditions in Australia are far in advance of those in this country/' he said on his return when interviewed by the Manitoba Free Press. “ With the exception of Sydney, there appears to be very little unemployment, and all lines of development appear to bo going steadily forward.. Of all the countries I visited on this tour, Australia made the greatest impression on me. I really think it is on the road to unthought-of prosperity. . . . Somehow, Canadian cities lack the attractions of those in Australia. Sydney is outstanding in beauty, and Melbourne, too, is a city of many attractions.”

Mr Simpson expressed himself as considerably impressed with farm conditions in Australia, declaring the methods employed to be superior co those in Canada. He thought Australia would be second to none in the production of wheat in a few years, and that it would rival Canada as a grain-growing nation. “It is -the coming nation of the world,” he predicted.

Professor Osborne is enthusiastic about the beauty and other characteristics of New Zealand cities. “ Utterly, utterly, utterly Scotch,” he said of Dunedin, remarking that he did not think any but the Scotch could live there. Dunedin is the financial centre of the Dominion, he told an audience, so it seemed the Scot did not lose anything by crossing the equator. “ I can honestly say I never met a finer group of up-standing, publicspirited citizens, absolutely faithful to the traditions of their own land 12,000 miles away,” he said of the Otago capital community. The hills around the cityreminded him of the hills seen from Edinburgh.

“ On the other hand there is nothing so much like an English provincial town as Christchurch. Its cathedral, the banks of the Avon, the mural monuments to deans of Oxford and Cambridge, the chanting of the boys’ choir made me think I whs in Winchester or Canterbury.” / Auckland and Wellington also made an appeal to the professor’s sense of the beautiful in cities, but in them he saw more of the conscious virility of a new order than in the two South Island centres. The amount of building progressing in them and other evidence spoke of material welfare, he said, and he remarked that on the whole the architecture employed in the buildjngs was

superior to that in the general run of « Canadian cities. And so, it seems, every man does not come back to his home town with the time-worn remark so over-worked in the daily press: “But I’m glad to be back. Gee, there’s no place like good old