IN HIGH REGARD

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LII, Issue 32, 21 April 1931, Page 5

IN HIGH REGARD

NEW ZEALAND IN CHILE.

REFERENCE TO QUAKE.

Very often is told of the hazy ideas held by people on the other side of the world with regard to New Zealand, and it is refreshing, therefore, to find that a columnist writing in Los Tiempos, a paper published in Santiago, Chile, takes the opportunity while referring to the Hawke's Bay disaster to point out to his readers some facts about the country. A clipping of his notes on the Saturday following the earthquake has been sent the Guardian by a citizen of Santiago, who adds that the Chileans were extremely sympathetic toward New Zealanders affected by the big quake. Avoiding one vice, and running into its opposite, the columnist has, in his endeavour to correct wrong impressions of New Zealand, painted, perhaps, a rather too glowing picture of the country, He begins by speaking of the way in which the world every now and then decides to show that it has not finished developing. Great upheavals occur which practically wipe out busy cities and flourishing populations. This is the sort of thing that has happened in New Zealand. The name, New Zealand, with its somewhat Polynesian sound, he remarks, generally stirs up associations and in>.ag«s which do not tally with what is really the case. "Heavenly tropical scenes, with palms, half-naked Kanakas, and simple farms, covered with bamboo— or, perhaps, wide prairies with a few stunted cattle and one or two shepherds here and there," he says. "But the facts are very different. The most noticeable thing about New Zealand is its modernity, its complete Wcsternism. The most up-to-date city in the United States is not a bit different from Wellington or from any other metropolitan centre. "The New Zealanders," he explains, ' 'a million and a half in number, belong to the white race. Industrious, healthy, and well-ordered, the production per head of the population i 3 the highest in the world. They have selfgovernment very similar to our own. 'That each shall receive according to his strength' is their social and economic axiom, according to something I once remember reading. "Available photographs and references describe New Zealand as having large cities, airy and pleasnt, with wide avenues. And they must have a high standard of culture, considering the example set by those kiddies, young school children, who were overwhelmed in buildings while trying to save their companions. Like the example just mentioned, many other acts of bravery have shone out of the tragedy at Napier. Such deeds—the very opposite of 'every man for himself!'—are necessarily the product of a higher spiritual atmosphere, attained only by people of advanced social education. "This good, industrious, God-fear-ing race has felt its beloved lard wrecked by a tremendous catastrophe, similar to those which laid waste the unfaithful cities of Holy Scripture. And it has faced its misfortune bravely and in fine silence. It has already begun to bury its dead—it will soon be rebuilding its cities and reorganising its life amid the sympathies of the world. Thus, at least, the disaster will have the effect of showing the reality of the New Zealand civilisation, which, until yesterday, has been either unknown or known wrongly by the great majority of people."