The New Zealand Graphic AND LADIES' JOURNAL. SATURDAY. MARCH 25, 1892.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 12, 25 March 1893, Page 274

The New Zealand Graphic AND LADIES' JOURNAL. SATURDAY. MARCH 25, 1892.

IT is part of the duty of an editor to annihilate popnlar fallacies. Generally the other part is to encourage

them. The fulfilment of a duty involving two such contradictory lines of action would be almost impossible were it not an understood thing among editors that, as a rule, the fallacies to be encouraged are those of their readers, and the fallacies to be annihilated are those of the party or nation that is not of the same way of thinking as their readers. The editor, who imagines this brief resume of editorial duty as incompatible with his duty as a man, may be right as to what constitutes manhood bnt is totally wrong as to what constitutes real editorship. His-error—a common enough one—arises from supposing that an editor is a man. Such an individual has clearly mistaken his calling, and if he persist in it, without changing his ideas, he will meet with disappointment at every turn. The public will regard him at first coldly, then with active aversion, and, in the end, he will have to vacate the editorial chair to make room for other editors—not men, mark you 1 Only in one way for a time can he hope to retain his seat and his readers’ favour. If he feel that he cannot conscientiously condone their fallacies let him set to in earnest to annihilate those of their neighbours. Therein lies his only hope.

There is no nearer course to popularity for an editor than to attack the failings of the minority, or those of the stranger without the gate. This is an article in the editorial creed, which, like the Athanasian creed, must be swallowed holus-bolus. Our New Zealand editors are orthodox in this matter, and quite lately they have been afforded an excellent opportunity of converting their faith into works. Here they are in the-e snug little islands, over which the sun of prosperity is rising higher and higher every day, while, on the other side ot the Austral sea, are no less than three sister colonies under dark eclipse. Was there ever such an opportunity of exposing the folly of our neighbours, contrasting it with our own wisdom, bestowing our good advice, and congratulating ouiselves that we are not as they are I It is not an opportunity to be missed. The model New Zealand editor knows how to make the most of all this. He never suffers a moral to go unpointed, or a tale unadorned with good Australian matter lying ready to his hand. The model New Zealand editor knows how to make capital out of Australia’s impecuniosity and assets, for his country, out of Australia’s deficits. He knows the trick of measuring the height of his country’s prosperity, not from the sea level of commerce throughout the world, but from the depths to which Victpria and New South Wales have sunk beneath it. Cunning artist that he is he knows how to contrast the smiling countenances of Maoriland with the elongated faces of the inhabitants of the Kangaroo and Dingo continent, and the Te Deums that yse on his side of the water with the misereres that make themselves heard from the other. If he does not know how to do all this he has no claim whatever to the title he bears.

New Zealand has a good deal of reason for rejoicing at present, a good deal of reason for drawing comparison between herself and Australia, and a good deal of reason for offering advice to the other colonies. She has tasted the cup of commercial depression to the bitter dregs and gained some excellent experience thereby. She brought her troubles upon herself by exactly the same process that Victoria and New South Wales have brought theirs upon themselves. With a rapidity that proves her earnestness to reform as well as her great resources, she has recovered herself. Surely, then, having passed through the school of adversity, she q well qualified to be a teacher in it. Of course she is 1 And by the mouths of her editors she is now speaking to Australia, out of a full experience and a full treasury too, words that may not be very palatable, for

they are not free from a strong flavour of self-glorification, bat which, nevertheless, may be salutary. Let oar editois speak oat and tell those once proud cities, which imagined vain things with regard to the future, something of what she herself has learned. Let them speak out and completely annihilate those popular fallacies with regard to nationbuilding that have so long been current in Australia. New Zealand, although perhaps she once held in common with the colonies in the * island continent ’ that city-building and nation-building were synonymous, has seen good to alter her opinion, if anything she can say will tend to destroy that delusion in Australia, where the recent depression has severely shaken it, the more, she says the better. When our editors have exploded Australian fallacies regarding Australia, they will find that the business has been so well received by their readers that they will naturally be on the lookout for fresh fields. Following the rule already laid down for their guidance, they will again, of course, direct their attention abroad. Scanning the world from China to Peru, they will find no place that affords a larger scope for the exercise of their editorial dynamite than a certain little island in the North German Ocean —a little island that we all know very well. In the niotherconntry there yet exist a great many popular fallacies regarding the colonies, and New Zealand among them. The removal of the more serious of these, which stand like rocks in the way of those who might direct their course hither, must be left to the action of more powerful explosives than the Graphic can command at present. To correct one of the lesser errors that prevail at home with regard to New Zealand is a big enough task for these pages; and as it is perhaps, not a hopeless one—seeing that they find their way in no inconsiderable numbers to these distant shores—let us devote a few paragraphs to it. Take, for instance, the hazy conception of life in New Zealand which the majority of Britons entertain. We only begin to suspect the crude picture which the average Englishman has formed of our colony, when be confesses himself agreeably surprised at something in our everyday mode of life. If he had never come to this end of the world, he would, almost to a certainty, have gone down to the grave pitying and somewhat despising the benighted Australasians. Running his eye over the map, John Bull pauses for a moment with his finger on that lonely-looking continent and islands in the far Pacific Ocean, and exclaims with fatherly compassion in his voice, * Poor Australia ! poor New Zealand I’

Heaven bless his honest heart, it is clear that he does not know us. We admit that we are in a somewhat out of-tbe-way corner of the world, but es for being objects for bis pity—why, the idea is ludicrous, and he would laugh at it himself if he conld only see us. To tell the truth the prevalent feeling in the Pacific here is pity for the poor inhabitants in the Northern sea. To envy them their melancholy summers and their dreary, dreary winters would be simple madness, and we could never be guilty of it. The very thought of their climate sends such a cold chill to our bones that we would gladly forget them altogether, if it were not that we find them convenient when we want pocket money. That need of pocket money on our part is really a providential arrangement for England. It is that very need that serves to remind ns of her existence. Otherwise we might become quite oblivious of it.

Life in a colonial city, like Auckland, for example, is of course not like life in London. For the great majority of mortals, however, it is infinitely preferable. A distinguished literary visitor, who trotted through New Zealand when it was not half so desirable a place to live in as it is now, said that unless be was the possessor of more than twenty thousand pounds of capital, he wouldlivein Maoriland if he could. It is extremely doubtful if an offer of twenty thousand pounds would induce the born New Zealander or the colonist of long standing who has been even moderately snccessful, to forsake the blue skies and fresh breezes of the Britain of the South for the muggy climate of that of the North. This may appear an exaggeration, but though there is no public record of a temptation of this handsome kind having been offered and resisted, there are numberless instances of people who prefer to live in the colony, though the wealth at their disposal would enable them to see and enjoy the great capitals of Europe at their best. But it is, undoubtedly, to the man of small means that New Zealand should appeal with the greatest force. It is the paradise of such, and of all who have to gain their daily bread by daily toil. How many cities in the world are there, where, even the clerks and the warehousemen can ride their horses or sail their yachts as they

do with ns ? The Londoner probably thinks pityingly of his colonial brother who has not a dozen theatres to spend the evening in, a Crystal or an Albert Palace, an Aquarium, a Venice in London, a National Gallery or a British Museum, to pass his Saturday afternoons at, or splendid streets and parks to lounge in. He is right in supposing that his brother has less of these things, but wrong in imagining that he misses them. The chances are that the Londoner would not miss them much himself if he once saw the blue waters of the Waitemata, stretching far away for miles round capes and headlands and between islands till they are lost in the silvery haze. If he once heard the rip of the yacht as she bowls along with scores of others, some bound for one island and some for another, would he sigh for the interminable roar of Cheapside or the Strand ? What sane mortal would not prefer the Robinson Crusoe existence a large part of our young fellows lead from Saturday to Monday in these deep bays, or in the cool bush recesses of these island valleys, to the life of a bank clerk or a shopman in London f Was there ever a picture gallery that could show a scene comparable to that which may be seen from the hill-tops or the rocky precipices of the islands or promontories! What is the muddy Thames to the vast Pacific and • the long wash of Australian seas’’ The stiff, timidly-compromising English watering-place—how it must hide its diminished head before those secluded creeks, where the Christmas tree showers its crimson blossom, and not a sound is heard save the plash of the oar, the whistle of the kingfisher, or the occasional * ding-dong ’ of the bell-bird. Oh 1 those creeks ! what glorious afternoons have we not spent in them ; what still more glorious moonlight evenings I We know the reefs where the oysters are like saucers, the spot where the schnapper filled the boat before many hours, the old Maori settlements where the peaches are dropping with ripeness, and the bush where the pigeons are like barndoor fowls. We will take our London friend there. We will also take him to a score of other equally delightful retreats by land or by water, not neglecting the summit of that volcano which guards our city. Looking down on that glorious panorama of sea and water, and on the white verandahed houses, the green bosky gardens and valleys of Auckland, surely the last vestige of that popular fallacy about the * poor colonial,’ in which he was bred and born would melt like snow before the sun.