UNKNOWN NEW ZEALAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7985, 14 March 1906, Page 3

UNKNOWN NEW ZEALAND.

Fame ia at best a mere shadow and the most strenuous method of advertising will not stretoh it beyond a certau limit (remarks the Sydney Daily men and actors will deny this, yet there ia no more substantial truth, and the fact that the Poßt Offioe officials of Paris have decided that New Zealand does not exist is the proof. An Australian abroad has written to a friend in Sydney that while in Paris he had occasion to go to the Post Office near the Place do l'Alma, with a Frenchman,- to make some enquiries about a mail to New Zealand. After hearing what the Frenchman had to say, the Post Office man gravely looked into a book, and said, "We send no mail there." "Ah, and why not?" he was asked. "Beoause," said the official with an air of decision, "there is no such placet" And this after seven Sew Zealand contingents went to South Africa! This, after the defiances to Mr Seddon at that time on behalf of the Empire to any European Powei, that hungered for glory and defeat! This, after the tour of the "All blacks," which only a few weeks before had vanquished "AllF-ance." If France only knew it would contemplate with terror what Kiobard Seddon, P.Ok. LL.D., will' have to say to all this. Only recently Mr Bent, the Victorian Premier, had the temerity to "pooh New Zealand." The bluff, "virile, masterful Mr Seddon may suffer his adopted country being "puohed," but to be told that it doed not exist will undoubtedly stir him into suoh action that the great Republic will have to speedily revise its geographical knowledge, and generally to be more careful in thet;future. That the New Zealand Premier will at once Bet to work to country known round about the boulevards is certain; and while employed iu this congenial task, he may so measure,up France that the unhappy Republic may earnestly pray that it could be said of it •'there is no such place."