The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1888. Monkeys that Travel .

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 127, 26 May 1888, Page 2

The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1888. Monkeys that Travel .

It is so much the fashion for people in the other Australasian colonies and England to write and speakdesparagingly of New Zealand and its inhabitants that we are becoming quite accustomed to it, and hope ultimately to become utterly callous, but in the meantime, before that happy consummation is reached, we will endeavor to give a brief explanation of the cause and origin of this undesirable state of outside public opinion. We say without further promise that the New Zealand settlers themselves are alone to blame, as the following incontrovertible facts will prove. The great provinces of the colony — Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury, and Ofcago— bate each other with all the bitter hatred of small and jealous minds. Each small town or village hamlet in turn hates its neighbor with an intensity impossible to guage by mortal means, and last, but not least, even neighbors who live in the same streets ! do not always love each other with an i abiding affection. Now, when any individual whose mind has necessarily received a sort of warp from his surroundings and association with people so peculiarly constituted, leaves for a trip either to Australia or England, he naturally carries a considerable load of local prejudices with him, and on his journey is certain to make them public among the strangers he meets. A. Wellington man, for example, may speak well of the place he comes from, but in the same breath he will condemn Auckland as the vilest hole in the world. The Auckland man will do the same to Wellington, the Canterbury man for Otago, and so on to the end of the chapter, and ye* at the end of his journey, when he returns to his own little nest, he will be heard loudly exclaiming against outsiders for their abuse of Ne<v Zealand. He forgets altogether that he and his,: class are alone to blame in the matter. This sort of " monkey who has jseen the world" is bad enough, but the worst of all is the absentee who has taken up his abode in the Home Country. He may not directly abuse and slander the land tkat has done so C2Uch for him, and to which he is so ungrateful, but he " damn's with faint praise." He says the place may be good enough, but it is overdone ; everything is overvalued while the taxation is crushing the workers to the dust. The climate is excellent, but one cannot avoid the severity of the winter (?) by running across to the South of France as one can in England. Society in the colonies is "mixed," and one cannot find there that tone which is so conducive to happiness in this life, &c, &c. In fact every word is an apology for not living in New Zealand. Is it to be expected then the unfortunate colony which produces such people can have anything else than a foul reputation ? 1 We opine not. Nor will it lose it un- j til that stupidly vindictive feeling of provincial jealousy, which has done so much to retard the progress of the colony, is done away with and a better spirit obtains among the people themselves. Let each man and community of men look to their own action 1 , and when they detect in themselves a desire to backbite and vilify their neighbors, whether in the same street or the mearest village or town, nip the desire in the bud and turn their minds in a more charitable direction. It may not be so pleasant te speak well as ill for a time, but in the end the benefits will be so patent that people will wonder they never tried the experiment before. If the resident of one town can speak no good of ano.her town, at least he should not let his tongue speak evil. The idea may be Utopian, but it is worth thinking orer. ,