A FLATTERING PORTRAIT.

Shannon News, 22 August 1924, Page 4

A FLATTERING PORTRAIT.

THE PEOPLE OF NEW ZEALAND. AS SEEN BY GREAT AMERICAN. SURGEON.

It is always of interest to know how we appear in other eyes. If the eyes are those of a particularly keen and competent critic, and if his judgment is kindly and favourable, the information is doubly acceptable. Dr. Frankton H. Martin, of Chicago, the managing editor, of "Surgery, Gynecology, and Obstetrics," the official journal of the American College of Surgeons, was a recent welcome .Visitor to these shores, and to the June number of his journal he contributes a description of his ■tour. .He concludes with a striking and highly, flattering reference to the ( people of Australia and New Zealand. Though Australia is expressly men- { tioned, the wording of the passage inakes it clear that the reference is chiefly to our own country. "It," writes Dr. Martin, "a Royal Commission had been -selected 200] years ago to discover somewhere on; earth ideal lands, with an ideal .ch-! mate, with ideal topography, and with a diversity of resources it could not have made a better selection than Australia and New Zealand to provide for a high civilisation. These islands extend from the milder tropics through the temperate to the milder frigid zone of latitude. They have rich agricultural plains that .-will grow in abundance all sustaining foods; they have rolling hills on which to graze their cattle and their- sheep; they "have marvellous mountain ranges that furnish all varieties of minerals to the world, and that reproduce the scenery of Switzerland and the beauties of our own Rockies in Canada and the United States. They have thousands of miles of seashore, rugged and beautiful, capacious harbours ifor commerce, and long stretches of pleasure beaches that reproduce ,the charm of Brighton and Atlantic City. The islands are large enough in area to house an empire of people, and to duplicate the wealth and culture of the United States or England; and they are isolated enough to make it possible to cultivate an independence that will rid them of the undesirable and "antiquated conditions and usages of the older countries.

• "The people of Australia and New Zealand are our kind of folk. They are predominantly Anglo-Saxon, and they or their immediate forefathers had the visions or independence to select these far-orf islands for a future home. They must have had in their make-up not only a spirit of independence but as well of initiative, of ideals, of frugality and of industry. This combination in any people moulds the character that it will peacefully conquer tho world. They are the survival of the Attest of a great civilisation. These people create just that impression upon thu stranger visiting ihc-ir fchores —the'.survival of the fittest. The stttlev.s of" these far-off counU-K'S, alter assuming the responsibility cf establishing their homes, there have exercised their good judgment and have insisted upon keeping their stock pure by refusing to mongrelise themselves by unwise intermixture of races. The people of these countries, because of the equable climate, live in the open; they develop physically and mentally in the out-of-doors; they are advocates of friendly contests and sports which engender the spirit of fair play; they are predominantly meat eaters, utilising the stock of their great grazing; plains. Physically and mentally the men are veritable giants; the women are strong and self-reliant, and have great charm.and culture of person. These countries , have a future or infinite possibilities which will aid in balancing the peace and prosperity of civilisation."