VIEWS ON N.Z.

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 75, 20 January 1947, Page 5

VIEWS ON N.Z.

“POLITICALLY-CONSCIOUS DEMOCRACY”

INDIAN EDITOR’S OPINION

“My impression is that yours is a very politically-conscious country—more so than England is even now. A politically-conscious people is a justification, for democracy and a safeguard against dictatorship”’ This is the opinion gathered by Mr lan Stephens, editor of the Indian “Statesman,” during a month’s visit to New Zealand. “You could not have a bigger contrast than that between India and New Zealand,” he told a Wellington journalist. ,

“New Zealand seems to me to be one of the most enlightened of the little modern democracies and strongly reminiscent of the Scandinavian countries before the war. It has a unified economy and the absolute minimum of class stratification,” said Mr Stephens. At the same time, he went on, the impression could be gained that, in spite of her war effort, New Zealand was “a little out of the world, a little far away, and perhaps even a little too comfortable and easy-going about work.

“India,” he added, “is a land of terrific contrasts in social, religious, economic and indeed, all spheres.” In spite of this, Mr Stephens found two affinities between the countries. The New Zealand Press, he said, was more like the Indian Press than that of Fleet Street or Australia. “It is serious, wary of sensationalism and published with a general ideal of social service,” he observed. This, he thought, had its bearing on the second point of similarity which was the intense political consciousness of both countries.