IGNORANCE OF NEW ZEALAND.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXII, Issue 4347, 25 November 1921, Page 1 (Supplement)

IGNORANCE OF NEW ZEALAND.

MB FRANK GOLDBERG’S EXPERIENCES IN AMERICA. “In one place I visited in Canada the editor of the focal newspaper intfrvfewed me personally,” said Mr Frank Goldberg recently, “and I emphatically requested him not to mix up New Zealand with Australia. I. thought I had fixed it this time, but when I picked up his paper the nex: morning the heading to my little interview was, “Ad. Man Says Australia Wants Canadian Goods.’ “ I called the editor up pn the ’phone, and argued with him, but all he had tp say in defence was .that he was sure New Zealand was a province of Australia. Everywhere I went, at rotary clubs and advertising clubs, I made a point ’of telling them where New Zealand was, and that New Zealanders did not week-end in Sydney, as .the steamer trip • occupied four days. As a matter of ffket, America i? so vast a territory in itself that I do not think the average American takes a serious interest in the geography’ of the rest of the world. “I am i sure our t sixth- standard school children are not so ignorant about America as Americans are about this part of the world. I was waiting for a car one day when a man, reading ‘Frank Goldberg, New Zealand,’ on my bag, stopped, and eyeing the bag, said 1 *: ‘Gee, you’re a long way from home!’ At last,, thought I to myself, here is a man who knows something about geography—here is one of . America’s geographers ! Then he Jet me down by. saying, 'And how’s things in New Foundland ?’ I told him I didn’t' come from Newfoundland, but from New Zealand, to which he replied, ‘Wai, J guess ifs about all the same' place.’ So I fold him he had another guess coming and hoped it would be a better one.”