SPECIAL MISSION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 272, 17 November 1943, Page 4

SPECIAL MISSION

SERIES OF LECTURES WHAT AMERICA THINKS (P.A.) Auckland, Nov. 11. Concrete evidence of the desire of the United States to promote better understanding with the people of New Zealand is provided by the visit of Professor Allan Nevins, who has been appointed special representative in the Dominion of the Office of War Information, Washington. Professor Nevins arrived by air from Sydney and plans to spend about two months in New Zealand, during which he will deliver a series of lectures on American war aims and problems of world reconstruction.

Scholar, teacher, and author, Professor Nevins, who is 52 years of age, has had a most distinguished career. In addition to being a doctor of law and of arts, he has been professor of American history at Cornell University and has held a similar position at Columbia University since 1931. Other honours held by Professor Nevins include the Harmsworth professorship of American history at Oxford University and visiting Carnegie professorship to Australia and New Zealand. In the literary field Professor Nevins has concentrated mainly on the American scene and has twice won the Pulitzer Prize. The awards, which were made in 1932 and 1937, were both for biographies, one concerning Grover Cleveland and the other Hamilton Fish. Most of his life has been spent in journalism. He has been a member of the editorial staff of the New York Evening Post, Nation, New York Sun, and New York World. The vast ignorance of the average American towards New Zealand was commented on by Professor Nevins in an interview. One of the popular misconceptions was that It was a Crown colony governed from London. There was a great deal of illinformed mistrust of New Zealand in conservative business circles, where some of the Dominion’s experiments were considered to be very radical. The American public also had shoum a general failure to understand the New Zealand society and mode of living. “New Zealand has been content with a much slower growth than the United States, and there is much to be said for your more sober pace,” said Professor Nevins. Though he has spent, one month in Australia, he declined to comment on his visit. Professor Nevins stated that in his lectures he would endeavour to give an account of what the American people thought about the war. the ultimate peace, and the resultant problems of world reconstruction. ,He also wished to study changes in New Zealand and to bring about a better understanding. The young men of both countries were fighting side by side, and no better basis for understanding could be desired. “I am convinced that the Nnited States has forsaken its former isolationist position,” said Professor Nevins, “and people are ready to make the necessary sacrifices. The large majority arc prepared to continue food rationing after the war to rehabilitate starving Europe, and to maintain an American force abroad to assist in police duties. What is more, they are prepared to bear hieher costs bv increases in taxation. There is a feeling in informed circles in America that, while there arc some potential causes of Irritation between the United States, Britain. and Russia, these will automatically disappear if a working global organisation is established.”