LORD PLUNKET ON POLITE NESS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 3733, 18 December 1906, Page 2

LORD PLUNKET ON POLITE NESS.

When Lady Plunket brought her six plainly dressed children to New Zealand one of the first things she said to a press interviewer was, “But how expensively the New Zealand girls do dress.” So they do of course but at the same time everybody got warm on the subject and thought Her Excellency shouldn’t have spoken the truth. Lord Plunket has given a prize to the Wellington Eoys’ College. It is for politeness. His Excellency has, of course, observed the general lack of politeness in the colony. He has noticed that there is practically no difference in the conversation of the working-man and the college boy. He will have noticed that the charm of manner for which our grandparents were supposed to be noted, no longer finds a place in our life and that ‘it is hard to get very nice manners such as are taught at Harrow, Eton, and Cambridge.’ You see the Governor went to Harrow and Cambridge and this is probably why he forgot to mention the nice manners taught at Oxford. One cannot fail to notice* that the well-bred newchum who comes to this country has a way of his own, that he does not fail to be as polite to his own sister as to all other peoples’ sisters, that he never forgets to thank people for the smallest consideration, that he never yells in company and is willing to inconvenience himself for the sake ot someone else. The colonial is of course and naturally as good as anybody else and he also naturally believes that if he is as good as anybody else that it is a humiliating thing to give up a seat, show gentleness or any of the graces that are the salt of life. People vary as to what they believe to be politeness. Lord Plunket has stalked right nut of a ballroom early in the evening in a state of high dudgeon. This may be politeness, but a colonial really can’t see it. Lady Plunket has shown disapproval of the dresses worn at a function. This also may be politeness. There is a polite way of shaking hands in Government House circles. All very, necessary indeed in a democratic community. It is polite for a whole houseful of people to stand when the Governor is leaving a place of entertainment. It is polite for the people on a pavement to fade off the face of the earth when the Governor wants to cross a path. It is polite for everybody to stand bareheaded—except the Governor while the same thing happens—and it is polite for the Governor to criticise our politeness.