LECTURERS’ TOUR

Hokitika Guardian, 21 November 1931, Page 6

LECTURERS’ TOUR

\ HOLIDAYING IN. AMERICA. i i ;

i f DUNEDIN, Nov. 18. According to Misses M. I*. Whitelaw and F. Wliitelaw, two Dunedin women, who have been on holiday m America for fifteen months, and who have spent a good deal of time lecturing on New Zealand subjects, American people are greatly interested in the graftless Government of this country. For them, so the tourists said, it was unusual to have any form of government entirely free from graft. The Misses Whitejaw left New Zealand in September last year with theintention of delivering occasional lectures during their, holiday. T hey were supplied with films! i n Wellington. On arrival in California they asked permission to lecture on New Zealand in the schools, but were told that no foreigners' were allowed to addres s school children in that State, and so,, after a short visit to Los Angeles,' they went on to Ohio and Kentucky. There: they spent several months lecturing ' fit schools .and colleges, and in bukiness-men s and wo men’s |)ubs. Then they embarked on a . motor! 'tour and visited, among other : places, Niagara Falls and Nova Scotia. 1 • Eventually they , came back to America and caught the Makura at San;Francisco, and arrived hack in New Zealand yesterday. ‘ ‘Many of the American people did not know a great deal about New Zealand, ’ but they were very interested in bur Government,” they said in an interview. “That was because o.ur Government is free from graft something apparently foreign ■to American politics. After the Wall Street crash, and the hard times generally, we got the impression that Americans are waking up to the graft in their Government bodies and a.re trying to eliminate it. Many people said to: us that they knew graft existed, 1 but that they couldn’t do anything .to stop it. POPULARITY OF HOME BREW

“AH prohibition seems to be accomplishing is to make Canada rich. Americans go into Canada on holiday in great numbers, and it is estimated that they spent about seven million, dollars at'year-in Quebec and about fift;eon million dollars a year in Montreal.

‘ 1 A,t neb rly every . A meriean > home we went into there wag liquor in the liouse : —mainly home- brew. In New York, according to the official figures, otljej-e were 7000 saloons before the 18th Amendment was passed; now there are '35,000 ‘speakeasy’s In many places it is the Federal police, and pot 'tlie State officers who enforce the prohibition laws.”

TOURISTS’ HOMES The two tourists purchased a car soon after their arrival in America and spent a good deal of time touring the country, covering, in all, about 25,000 miles. A feature of the looting along United States roads, they said, was that many of the farmers who had their homes near the roads turned their houses into “Tourist Homes,” where people could .stop for a night, at a charge of a dollar, and could get a meal' for about 3o cents. In the western States tourists’ camps were ' frequently to be seen near the roads/ most of them equipped with gas or .electricity, The people in the “tourist homes”, were always, most hospitable—so much so that without much provocation, often, they would “turn on a party.” “BIG BILL” THOMSON “Americans we met asked us not to judge them 1 ' 1 by ‘Big Bill’ Thomson. ex-Mayor of Chicago,” the tourists said. “Generally speaking, they have a groat regard for British people. Britain’s payment Of the instalment of the war debt last year made a very favourable impression on Americans. The Prince of Wales—Teddy Wales they call him—is a very popuar character with them; so is Sir Thomas Lipton.”

'Hie Hawke’s Bay earthquake, the tourists said, was very well reported in America. . They themselves had heard of it, in Kentucky, on a Monday morning—before it actually happened, according to New Zealand time. In about three weeks all the papers printed excellent pictures of Napier and Hastings and not long afterward “movies” were shown on the screen.

At Hards tone, in V. Kentucky, the tourists visited the home of Stephen Foster, composer ,of the .-famous’ plantation songs. It was a wonderful home, they said, and among the many interesting things in it was Foster’s paino, with keys of mother o’pearl instead of ivory. “American people showed themselves intensely interested in our government of the Maoris,” they said. “The .Indians there have had a‘ pretty hard time of it up to now, - and many of the thinking, men and women there are of opinion that it is about time they were treated in something the same way as theMaoris are here.”