POLISH PEASANTS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17174, 3 February 1930, Page 2

POLISH PEASANTS

W BETTEE THAN NATIVES

NEW ZEALANDER'S STORY

LONDON, Feb. 3

According to Count Geoffrey dp Montnlk, a young Aucfclander claiming in ancient Polish title, who came to England from the Dominion in 1928, to boost New, Zealand .poetry, tho peasantry of Poland are xtill in a worse state of civilisation than the Maoris before the white occupation.

Count do Montalk says that after a visit to Lithuania ami Poland he found that:—"The nobles arc still the inly civilised people. When we met peasants Walking or riding they boweel to the ground, exclaiming, 'Good ilny, mighty lords.' It is still the ;>r».?tiee to address tho nobility uh 'mightiest.' Tho common.people.arc no better than African natives, except fclioy are white i:i color. I wns tho first member of the de Montalk family for t'jree generations to enter the Polisn pulaco. lam glad lam a New Zea'lauder with no need to remain in thai mediaeval land."

Count do Montalk told a literary audience fit Foylo's bookshop, in a lecture, that New Zealand had pro. dueed better poetry than William Shakospeare ever thought of. Tho audienco was not impressed, even when the speaker mentioned he had written, some himself.