“SO ENGLISH!”

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5330, 24 September 1928, Page 2

“SO ENGLISH!”

RUSSIAN VIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. M. Cherkassky, father of shuru Cherkassky, the brilliant pianist, thinks New Zealand a really wonderful country (reports ,the Wellington Dominion). He expresses amazement that in sb short a time —less than a century—a new cquntry could become so marvellously developed. The first fortnight, of his visit was s!pent in Christchurch, which had the effect of making him believe he was in England, and onlv by exerting common sense co.uld he come to understand that he was at the exact Antipodes. “You are so. very English,” said M. Cherassky, “Everything took, and talk and think like English, it ver* interesting to me. I did nc;t think countries so. far away dowp here wiould be so forward—advanced. Ycjur peai pie are English; all of you, every" where I meet! It is not so in Australia. They are somewhat different. Perhaps it is the climate qr .something, but they seamed to have developed a character of their own. That is not so in New Zealand. Yo,u are so English. You make your places like England, and you plant the same trees. It is just wonderful ho.w you have done it in just a, few years.”