BLUNT CRITICISM

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3471, 26 May 1934, Page 7

BLUNT CRITICISM

NEW ZEALAND “SMUGNESS.”

AFRAID TO SPEND MONEY. “ Among the peoples of the work! we New Zealanders are known as ‘ good little boys.’ The others may be bad little boys with dirty faces, but at least they are doing something while we keep our faces e’ean. It would do us good in New Zealand to have a few political scandals, because then we might take more interest in politics than we do at present.” This comment on the Dominion was made by Mr J. R. Cunningham, in an address at a luncheon given by the Christchurch Business Men’s Club this week. Mr Cunningham has recently returned from an extended trip to America. During his time abroad he visited forty different countries and islands. A comparison between conditions in New Zealand and in America leads him to the belief that —“we in New Zealand haven’t enough vices, and there is no tenough sin among us—l mean by ‘ sin ’ the opposite to being really too good,” says the Christchurch Times. Mr Cunningham said that he was a loyal New Zealander, but every time he returned from abroad he realised there was something wrong with the people of the Dominion and their outlook. New Zealand was not progressing as it should. There we to such disadvantages as a sad lack of population, but thei-e were great potential sources of wealth and with its great resources New Zealand should scarcely have felt the depression at all. “ Wie are really afraid to spend money in New Zealand,” continued Mr Cunningham. “We have not the civic pride we should have, nor have we any national pride. We in the South Island may smile at Auckland/but that is the one city in New Zealand that is trying to push itself ahead. New Zea and suffers from being’ too cloistered. It is quite true that we suffer from smugness and complacent aloofness.” Mr Cunningham said that New Zealanders were behind the times in the science of living. They did not know how to blend their foods properly. They did not know how to dres sproperly. Too many business men went to their offices in baggy trousers. They did not know even the science of making beds. They were the victims of aloofness and self-satisfaction and they built sixfeet high fences round their gardens so that they could keep themselves aloof. “In every way .we badly need to make aT the contacts we can with other nations,” continued Mr Cunningham. “The big shipping companies are helping us greatly by bringing tourists here who leave a great deal of money in the country. We are not alive to our great attractions for tourists. The Americans are now becoming tired of Europe; they want to break new ground, and we should do all we can to encourage them to come here. We don’t realise the beauty of our own country.”