The Waikato Times. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1911. AS OTHERS SEE US.

Waikato Times, Issue 12186, 22 September 1911, Page 4

The Waikato Times. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1911. AS OTHERS SEE US.

New Zealand entertained an angel unawares last year. Mr Walter C. Kelly, who is described «by the American papers as "a famous Virgiani a n judge," has just completed a tour 0 f the world, and he has been telling, his countrymen all about New Zealand, which he visited in IVIO. His criticism is sweeping in fits severity. " New Zealand is a country you read about because it is supposed to be advanced," he says. " I was there last summer—that is, summer in New Zealand and winter here—and f'll never go there any more. No doubt New Zealand is a prosperous country in spots. It is a country where the women vote. And it is entirely under the domination of Scotch Presbyterians. Heaven save us from the kind of laws they have in New Zealand ! They haven't been able to stop the sun shining yet, but they'll try to (do it." Mr Kelly adds that the dominion owes its existence to the poverty of England and Scotland. Its people are " so afraid that they may happen back into their eld starvation state that they are the tightest wads on the habitable globe." The ordinary New Zealander, in fact, should not " pay five cents to see King George in a double trapeze act." Having disposed of New Zealand Mr Kelly turns to South Africa, which he describes as " a land .of (mineral wealth and whiskers '- and " a desolate wart on the face of nature." A Capetown resident asked him whether he did not think the city nicely laid out. '''Yes," replied the American, " that's so. But why delay the burial ? " But Mr Kelly liked Australia. He found that its cities were " regular places," and that the average Australian was " broad-minded, a hustler and a sportsman." "I met Bill Corbett, of the Sydney Referee," says the judge, " and what he did to put me in the way of hospitality almost put line out of business. The thousands of Americans who met Corbett when he was here to attend the catastrophe a t Reno may size him up las a type of the Australians." Perhaps the real trouble in New Zealand was that Mr Kelly did not meet a Bill Cortett.