DISGRUNTLED TOURISTS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5128, 20 May 1927, Page 1

DISGRUNTLED TOURISTS.

SORE WITH NEW ZEALAND.

NEW AMERICAN GOSPEL.

The intimation that New Zealand Is to be left out of the itinerary of certain American world trips in the future is commented upon by “K” i ll “Obiter Dicta” in the Christchurch Press :—

Mr and Mrs Hiram Q. Babbitt left us in a huff and wi.ll never leave Detroit 'Oil.) except to spread bad news about us. ’Which is to say that the American tourists who came to these goshdurngd parts on the Franconia and Carinthia, ajid who were hurt because some New Zealand writers disliked both their diamonds and their habit o.f inhaling their soup, have “ cut New Zealand and Australia from their itineraries.” Most of us, like the bull in Aesop—the one upon whose horn a fly from Boston (Mass.) alighted—did not know that the Babbitts had either come or gone. But the Government did, and an Auckland message told us that the New Zealand Tourist League had been imploring Tuxedo (Nev.) or San Diego (Cal.) or some part of George Washington s home district to give the Dominion an opportunity to “remove any genuine grievances.” The reply was cold: the Babbitts are too proud of their horn spectacles and their opulence to expose these precious things to the risk of any further disparagement by the aborigines of the Antipodes. This explains the neglect of Mr Coates to pay proper attention to the wheat problem : Mr Coates, already deeply engaged in the business of persuading Mr Zane Grey to come out of his tent and catch swordfish as in the happy days of yore, has the Babbitts on his mind. For the Babbitts, after all, are decked with dollars—which can be removed in large quantities if tactfully handled —and Auckland has realised that the destiny of New Zealand, like Switzerland, is to grow rich by living on the tourists. From time to time I have mentioned in these notes some of. the advertisements which reveal the culture of the Babbitts. One which cannot be ignored has begun to appear in Ame- . rican newspapers and magazines. It recommends “Elbert Hubbard’s Scrapbook,” and it is in story form. Jane and Ted, dressed in the evening clothes of Gloria Swanson and Richard Barthelmess, are returning from an evening, and Jane is scolding Ted for sitting all evening like an owl. “Just when I wanted to be so proud of you, you sat there all evening without saying a single word.” Ted, uoor fellow, says he could not follow the conversation —Nietzsche and such — and was advised to read more. Jane herself had been wonderful. “You seemed to know about everything,” Ted told her. Jane, being as truthful as she was cultured, explained that she “found all that information in Elbert Hubbard’s Scrapboook,” and all the way home she told him about the book.

“Imagine, Ted ! In that one great scrapbook are all the ideas that helped pubbard most, all the wonderful bits of wisdom that inspired him—the greatest thoughts of the last four thousand years I He did all your, reading for you I You don’t need to go through long, tiresome volumes — you can get at a glance what Hubbard had to read days and days to find. Promise' nie you’ll read in it every day for five or ten minutes, dear. It will make you so well-in-formed —you’ll never need to feel embarrassed or unconiif.ortable in company again.”

“It sounds great,” he said, as the cab drew up at the door. “Why didn’t you /tell me about it long ago ?”

Here, in a nutshell, as the New York Saturday Review says, is the new American gospel, which proclaims not knowledge, but the semblance of knowledge, as desirable. Shoddiness is becoming a goal and a god. This makes easier to bear the decision of the American gold birds to shed their dollars on other shores than ours.