ARE WE?

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 83, 30 August 1873, Page 3

ARE WE?

Are we getting snobbish in this country, or are we preserving the simple manners which should distinguish colonists ? tip to a recent date it was understood that settlers, for the most part; had adieu .to the silly conventionalisms and social exactions of the old country —they had come to learn that ; a;man should be respected for what he is, and not for what he has — but we. (fVanganui Herald) fear a change is coming over us, A few persons in every district of these colonies, more gifted with brass than brtrins, have always been striving after such a state of things, and, judging by What we see and hear, they are achieving a certain measure of success. We are told that Wellington cultivates social caste as earnestly as Delhi or Benares.' A man of independent mind, as Burns says, can look and laugh at such things, but they exercise a pernicious influence notwithstanding. No words or wdrks are more important than those which make a difference between man and man, and the way in which a certain small class here and elsewhere misunderstand their position, is something very ludicrous. There is, not asserted but very distinctly implied, a sort of vulgar contempt for those who have not a large number of acres of land, coupled with self-abasement and a confession of inferiority to those who are rich in such a possession. Now, the instinctive servility Which recognises a social superior in every person who is richer than yourself, or who chooses to give parties and balls, is one of the meanest and dirtiest habits ot mind in which a man can indulge. There -are many families with small incomes, the members of which are by ’manners, by education, and by sentiment, perfectly entitled to associate on terms of social equality with , any man in the country, and there are possessors of any amount of land (how they come by it all we shall not now inquire), who, when tried.by .the tests we have mentioned, are not fit to black the boots .of their supposed inferiors: s In a neW country like this such truths cannot ,tqo frequently he kept before the public. ■ ■ 1 ...I- --.A . ;:i - -.v J .> .