NEW ZEALANDERS’WAYS

Taranaki Daily News, 8 August 1930, Page 7

NEW ZEALANDERS’WAYS

AUSTRALIANS’ IMPRESSIONS. ' ' MANNERS AND COMPLEXIONS. ■ Some impressions'of. New Zealanders in general, and of Aucklanders in particular, from the -Australian viewpoint appeared in a recent, issue of the West Australian, published in Perth. The article, which is the joint production of Messrs. I C. Goff and E. W. Irwin, is apparently the outcome of a recent visit to Auckland. ...It will be. noticed that the writers are somewhat astray in regard to the prices of certain commodities. Their observations arc recorded as follows:—

At a recent municipal council meeting in New Zealand a councillor, in reply to a colleague who had voiced, his Tears concerning the influence of the American talkie” on the speech of New Zealanders, said:.; ‘As long as we do not get The Australian twang, that is all that matters.” . - It is not only in speech that the New Zealanders are more English than the Australians; while no.more loyal to the Empire/ they are more English in sentiment.- And here, in spite of differences in climate and country/ lies the main distinction between tho New landers ' and • the Australians. New Zealand, the “Brighter Britain , of' the . South,” has passed little' beyond Hie colony stage; : unlike Australia, she has yet to attain nationhood. - . Although not displaying an assertive national spirit, the’New Zealander has more /pride in his country and more faith in'its future,’ than has the Australian -at the preesn't time at any rate. He is prouder, but more modest. New. Zealanders who have visited Melbourne and Sydney, while impressed with the/cities, consider that th© Australians; love their country, not too well, but too flamboyantly. They say, ■ also, that, the Australians lose no chance of proclaiming and asserting their individuality. j. r - ” ’ A Perth visitor to Auckland finds that the people have better manners than’ his own folk. He finds the .taxi-drivers and tramway employees more polite, the shop assistants more obliging, the waitresses more attentive and the man in > the street moreihospitable to the visitor. The other day a. visitor from. Perth asked the inoterman /of an Auckland tramcar■ the ■ way.-, to a certain street. The ruotormah told him and started tho ; tram, " but after it had moved a Tew yards from: the corner - lie stopped the . car, jumped out, hurried back to the Perth.man (who was waiting, for the next tram) . and said: . “Sorry, sir; 1 told You wrong. You should take. the car after the next one.” .That sort of thing rarely happens in Perth. Last year, with the waving of flftga ; and the 'beating of drums, Perth cole- . brated her 100th birthday. In a jthops- . and lengthy' speeches ’the achievements’ of a hundred years were enumerated, described and praised. Prosperity, seemwas at its. pcak* , But a .Peiui citizen who visited Auckland had .his civic pride considerably modified . when he found that his own city- had been outstripped by an other, 15 years younger The population of Perth is. 197,000; that of . Auckland, 210,000. And, though Auckland has her unemployed,’they are nowhere to be seen. , ■ In spite of the higher wages in Western Australia, it is easier io save, money in New Zealand, wheie a penny pays .for a telephone call or .the ordinary postage stamp and’a shilling for a wood three-course hieaE Fruit is sold mainly by weight—a shilling will buy , • six pounds of bananas. In some commodities, of course, the Australian has the advantage. A Perth visitor, accustomed to paying a shilling for eix pounds of grapes, would receive a sliocx. if he were charged 18s according to the Auckland price. New Zealanders, as a ’ whole,: dress as well as the men .in Sydney, but not so smartly as those in Melbourne or ’ - Perth. Thanks -'to. the comparative cheapness of furs, the New o-irl holds her own' with her Australian ' cousin. And-here. is the true English . toucli-even if. her feet are ‘larger, her . complexion is. far more'beautiful.