OUR “NEWNESS.”

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4929, 22 January 1926, Page 3

OUR “NEWNESS.”

NOTED AMERICAN'S IMPRESSIONS

VIEWS OF DR. VAN DYKE.

Following in .the w,ake or a more recent visitor, Mr A. P. Herbert, of Punch,'another urbane and friendly critic of New Zealand has committed his views to- print. It is Dr. Henry Van Dyke, divine, poet, professor, diplomat, angler, and o>ne of the “grand : old men” of American literature. Dr. Van Dyke, who is 73, visited New Zealand last year, as he says, “with a daughter under each arm,” to see a far land and to try conclusions with our famous trout. In the Degcember Scribner’s Magazine he puts '"itojfn some of his impressions under thecaption, “The Newness of New .» The, doctor first of .aH;!. tells why he came to New Zealand. “Why this choice? For three reasons. First, it is really a very far country, just about at the opposite side of the globe —summer is. there while winter is here.'Second, it is politically the newest and most 'experimental civilised nation in the world. Third, it claims to have superlative trout fishing, and I confess to being an inveterate angler,, and, therefore, according to President Coolidge, only a boy—thaihk God” - WELLINGTON AND TIMARU. He crossed . the Pacific from San Fra,ncis,co in the Maunganui. New Zealand is in sight. You enter the harbour of Wellington, The bare, bold, grassy hills of golden brown’ rise around you like the hills of San Francisco Bay. You feel that you have reached a real country—not a refuge of pipe dreams. But when you settle down into the plushy comfort of the hotef you feel that you are still in the Old .World, The hotel is exactly like ?, mid-Vietorian inn in Winchester or Coventry—quiet almost to the point of suppression—the same old sentimental and sporting lithographs on the waWs—the same, primitive washing’arrangements in-the bedrooms — the same respectable and mutually Britishers going in and out of the dining-room and lingering vacuously in the lounge over the cups of alleged coffee. It is not exactly gay,! but it is very homelike and ‘couthy.’ And every now and then a Scotsman or an Irishman blows into tlie smoke-room ,to liven things up.” From Wellingon Dr. Van Dyke went down to Temuka and flsjied. The countryside delighted, him, “It is as fair a scene of rural prosperity as ever I saw in my life,” lie'declares. “Flowers everywhere; nobody in a hurry;- all the faeces tanned and healthy.” But he did not like Timaru, “a typical British seaside resort—smoky, dusty, dull—with well-tended flower gardens and a flat view of .the sea ; but nothing more except shops and "•Factories. . . . From this ‘pleasure city’ we embarked in a stout motorbus for Mount Cook, the highest point in New Zealand (12,170 ft LAND MADE FOR SHEEP. Of the Mackenzie Country he says: “God must ha.ve had sheep in His mind when he made this country. Man brought them here, and they have multiplied and flourished abundantly. We saw them everywhere on the golden ' brown hills. They almost blocked the roads, going or coming ' from the sheep auction at Lake Tekapo, where hundreds of motor-cars were parked and the people were picnicking.” ' The visitor shrewdly observed social conditions in New Zealand, which, a,s he remarks, has beeh for at least 40 years the foremost social experiment station of the. world. “ft is very hard for a stranger, a brief visitor, to form an opinion of the political status of subh a new country’ as this. Is it capitalistic ? Certainly not. Unless you recognise the fact that .the State can only borrow money from the people who have • saved it. Is it going to the bad because of its socialistic legislation ? Certainly not, because it is guided by - the hard-headed British commonsense, and safeguarded by the British passion for finding fault. LOVE OF HORSE RACING. "The only dubious effects of all. the new laws, so far as 1 could see, were these: The 1 Government hajs' to pay a little over 5 per cent, for the money that it borrows in London and elsewhere ; the individual man has a slight tendency to rely on the State - for those things which he should, and in the end must, do for himself, "What I wanted ,to observe and consider was the practical working out of these experiments ini State Socialism. Frankly, I couHd not see •that they had made any radical changes in the fabric of human life. The industrious people were prosperous and happy. The idlers and incompetents suffered and growled. The rich were neither bloated nor ostentatious. The poor (‘always with us,' according to the Scritpur e si) were dissatisfied, but did not s,eem depressed or oppressed.” The nearly universal, love of racing he excuses. “This is an out-door country, and the New Zealanders are desperate bettors on horse races—almost as, much given • to- this curious form of gambling as the Australians. Most of the bettons’ know little about horses; but, after all, horse racing is a handsomer sport than cock-fighting or bull-fighting.” By way of appendix Dr. Van Dyke gives l a short Nev/ Zealand bibliography and especially recommends -the Hon. W. Pember Reeves.’ “The Long White Cloud.” “Everyone who wishes to understand New Zealand :a'nd its picturesque history should read this book,” he declares, “and then <go to see the .country for himself.”