The Daily News. SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1911. BIRDS, ETC.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 30, 29 July 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1911. BIRDS, ETC.

The New Zealand youngster, as ft general thing, has no love for the beautiful. He believe tlmt the loveliness of his native land, grown to perfection through "the patient centuries," are handicaps to progress, because his fathers have fought loveliness and instituted in its stead artificiality and occasional squalor. He assumes that an allwise Providence filled the disappearing bush lands with incomparable bird life, either to be shot or burnt on those i*teresting yearly occasions when the work of thousands of years, worth tens of thousands of pounds, ascends in smoke,' so that the tenth of a tithe of the timber's worth may be reaped. He docs I not know it—and he will not believe it ! though he is told—that he will raisa the real New Zealand when it is cut up into mathematical, treeless and birdless portions, sun-killed or flood-wrecked. It is almost appalling to note the ignorance of the New Zealand youngster about his own country. He knows more about the imported tree than about the bush. We heard a youngster the other day speaking with the greatest contempt of "them Maori trees," and he is certainly better acquainted with the Aardv imported small pest birds than about the disappearing bird life that is part of New Zealand. The national passion for destruction has changed New Zealand in 60 year» to a greater extent than most countries could be changed in iiOO yean. Every effort has been made to rob it of its characteristics; no attempt has ever been made in schools to instil a reverence for Nature in the children, nor have there been any but the most feeble efforts to save the remnant of our beantiful birds. The man who insists on regarding native birds or native trees as of both commercial and sentimental value is generally looked on as a fool or a crank. Here and there the Government have made sanctuaries for native birds, and except when the hunters from the towns sneak their way into these reserves and "bag" the birds they are comparatively safe. It is unusual to meet with a person who cares twopence about the subject. "Get all you can while von can, and let the future generations pay for our misdeeds," seems to be a very general attitude. In settled districts, where Nature remains undisturbed, it is generally by accident and not design. The constant and perfectly uncontrolled destruction of the beautiful has its effect on the national character, and induces a hard matter of fact pounds-shillings-and-pence estimate of everything in life. Art will never flourish in New Zealand until there is a deeper regard for the beauties that remain unspoilt and the life that has not yet fallen to the guns of the hoodlums. A British statesman lately said admiringly that the New Zealander was "very thorough." He is. He takes it "in the face," bird, beast, forest

—■• ill Nature. He Ims introduced weird 1 animals from abroad to kill out ''ihese I 'ere Maori things," and when he hears | there is a bit of incomparable bush — S which in 50 years will be worth untold I thousands of pounds as a curiosity—ho I aches to burn it and sow the merest fraction of its value in the ruins. There is a little island called Kapiti which the Government is keeping for a bird and scenic reserve. Already "utilitarians"— I save the word!—are asking permission to burn it nice and clean, and the syndicator—one of the chief pests in the land—is itching to get survey pegs into it. In no other country in the world would the State permit the infamous waste that is yearly making New Zealand quite unlike itself, and in no country is there less sentimental regard for beauty. The disregard of beauty and the contempt for Nature naturally spreads to the towns —glaringly hideous series of pill boxes that have to be vio- j lently praised in the press as soon as j the last dab of paint is sparingly applied, or the last fourth-class weatherboard nailed on. .Birds? "Who won the boatrace?" Trees? "How much did he make on his bargain?" Beauty? "What price did Dingbat pay in the Handicap?"