NEW ZEALAND'S PAROCHIALISM. And the New Zealander's Dreadful Ignorance.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 130, 27 December 1902, Page 8

NEW ZEALAND'S PAROCHIALISM. And the New Zealander's Dreadful Ignorance.

" TTIS coo tem.pt is bred of ignorance M~K and unjustifiable conceit." This was saad by Miss Constance Barnicoat, 8.A., a distinguished New Zealand scholar and traveller, who has been away learning things, of the man who knew no other country than his own. Miss Barnicoat happened to be talking about New Zealanders amd their parochialism — tlheir inability to understand that anyone knows anything but themselves and all the rest of the accusations' that go to show that, in the opinion of the lady in question, the average New Zealander is a mixture of conceit an d ignorance . • • • It will be readily understood that the few native-born people of this country, who have lived in. it all their lives, are intensely parochial. This is not a bit surprising, considering that so few of them have ever had the advantages the lady censor has enjoyed. But, the tilting is at the colonial who, going Home and to Europe, still, on Ids return to Ins little weatherboard world persists m believing that there has been nothing to learn, and that his little weatherboard world is still the hub aiouad which the earth whirls. It is partly true, but, for all that, the estimate 1 the colonial has of himself and his sun oundmgs is a more excellent foundation on which to rear a nation than on a course of 'Weekly Times." But, the insinuation that this young New Zealand lady makes, that our public men and our journalists are away behind the times because they don't have the "Contemporary Review," •'Nineteenth Century," "National Review," and other portentous periodicals at their fingers' ends, hurts most. If we had those serious reviews on hand, and a copy of the "Weekly Times" on the desk, our finger would be on the pulse of the universe. For what purpose?

As the pulse of this little outpost of the Empire is the chief concern of the public men and journalists of this colony, is it not just as well to leave a little of the diagnosis of distant affairs to people who are not parochial, and whom it most concerns? Miss Barnicoat is young, but it is easy to see that she has read those reviews, and is capable of advising the land of her birth how to avoid extinction. "We shall not be able to hold our own in the stern race for supremacy" if we do not stop taking tilings easy, and begin to systematically read the "Weekly Times." • • • Miss Barnicoat has had her breadth of vision still further broadened ' y contact with t(he great ones of the earth, and the nations of the Continent, and, her breadth of vision ena 1 les her to see tihat ease-loving nations go to the wall. This is an unkind cut, for this jagged spot, with the wee population, is assumed to be one of those "ease-loving nations." She advises knocking off two-thirds of the holidays, and working longer hours ! Miss Barnicoat, it. may safely be presumed, has never served behind a draper's counter, or cooked for farm hands at harvest time. • * * She might advocate that the pernicious practice of allowing a half-day's holiday a week should immediately cease. Anyhow, she might lecture on the subject of ease-loving, holidays, ignorance, and the "Nineteenth Century." She might issue a primer, with little explanatory lessons for politicians, and a hand-book far journalists, with rules for their guidance, and a glossary of dimcult words from the Reviews at the end. Then, too, in the spirit of friendship, she might easily get the secretaries of industrial unions to ask their members to agitate for al2 hours' day. To enlarge the views of her unfortunate countrymen she should petition the Government to send a weekly batch of New Zealanders to Europe to convince them that they "manage these things better in France" and elsewhlere, and that this little, struggling country, that works hard, and has 1 no time for the accomplishments that make the polished and sincere critic, has not a hope of becoming a thousand years old in a fortnight. • • • Miss Barnicoat, 8.A., is probably a scholar who is sincere in her desire to lift the New Zealanders who are sibeeped in ignorance on to an eminence to be gained only by a thorough knowledge of Continental languages and the Reviews. It lsi appalling to think that no one — no statesman, no lawyer, no parochial scholar of any kind — has before now found out that we are doomed to extinction by reason of our cramped environments, and lack of Review pabulum. But, it is refreshing to have the knowledge that we, may escape out of the mire by following the advice that has just been tendered to us by Miss Barnicoat through the medium of the press interviewer.