New Zealand's Welcome

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 645, 23 April 1929, Page 8

New Zealand's Welcome

Does Dominion Insult Guests ?

ENTERING New Zealand, the overseas visitor goes through the irksome procedure of signing documents and swearing allegiance to the laws of the country. It is doubtful, however, if many of the 230 people who landed in Auckland over the week-end would feel so disturbed as an Australian who, in his criticism of New Zealand’s methods of reception, is more candid than courteous.

JT might have been an unusually rough trip across the Tasman which induced an Australian travellerjournalist to believe that it was as hard to enter New Zealand as it was to gain access to Paradise. But this was one of the mildest things he said about the Dominion, in writing his impressions in his native country. “Those New Zealand cousins of ours need a little plain talk—some straight Australian from this end,” he suggests, in covering a series of affronts under the guise of telling the plain truth. “We are duly impressed with the fact that New Zealand is ‘God's Own Country,’ and all that sort of thing. What we are not impressed with is the manner in which we are received when we visit ‘God’s Own’ in response to the fervent invitations extended by the Publicity Department of the New Zealand Government. For, to tell the truth, we are regarded with grave suspicion upon arrival —in fact, it is almost as hard to enter the country as it is to pass into Paradise, which in all probability is regarded also by its inhabitants as ‘God’s Own Country.’ “X speak with first-hand experience as a recent visitor. Before a passenger can land at any of the ports of New Zealand, he must fill in a form of interrogation which would do justice to a New York detective applying the third degree to a hold-up suspect. “His name and age, whether he is married or single, the names of his parents, where he was born, where the said parents were born, what his purpose is in coming to the country, how long he intends to remain, where he will reside while in New Zealand, how many children he has, and what their ages are—these are but a few of the impertinences which must be answered in writing, and affirmed by signature. “Such personal questions are irritating enough, but then comes another form, in which the visitor is required to give an undertaking to observe the laws of the country and declare his loyalty, etc. “There probably was never a more insulting paper put before a British subject for signature. “It would, of course, be excusable to ask foreigners to observe British law, but to require Australians to declare their loyalty, after having put them to a personal examination as to

their antecedents, intentions, and domestic connections, savours of the rudeness of the upstart and the prig. “Apparently New Zealanders, having convinced themselves they are the most loyal Britons in the whole of the Empire (motto, “More English than the English”), have likewise persuaded themselves that the loyalty of the people of all the other Dominions must be regarded with the gravest doubt. “Almost as much humiliation is imposed upon the visitor in the matter of the Customs. After his luggage is deposited in the shed, he had to open it for the personal scrutiny of some gold-buttoned official, who is not at all particular in disturbing the contents of boxes and suitcases. “One would imagine that the baggage to be inspected was that of a smuggler from an opium trade centre. I never saw so many Customs officers gathered around one ship anywhere as I saw around the vessel on which I arrived in Auckland from Sydney. “And their manners and behaviour well upheld the statements of experienced travellers that the New Zealand Customs men are the most discourteous in the British Empire. “Numerous visitors have felt so indignant at this treatment that they have vowed never to return to see the beauties of ‘God’s Own Country/ It is the same whether one is or is not a regular traveller to and from New Zealand. A similar inquisition must be faced on each occasion of arrival. “If it w r ere not so annoying to the traveller, it would be almost as enjoyable as comic opera to see the seriousness with w r hich the swarming officials of the queer little country take themselves. But the impertinent inquisition and the long delay in landing to which the visitor is subjected is too far beyond a joke to be at all funny. “If New Zealand wishes to retain the tourist traffic from Australia, from which it draws so large a revenue, the authorities need to abolish such obnoxious impediments to landing, and extend a more cordial welcome to those arriving on their shores. “And if they will not abolish them, they ought in common honesty advertise in their tourist-enticing literature that travellers to their shores will be subjected to examinations which are degrading and to delays which are insulting.”