NEW ZEALANDERS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 82, 27 September 1911, Page 7

NEW ZEALANDERS

••TIGHTEST WADS ON EARTH.'' FOCiWELL AND 111S CRITICS. London, August 11. "There's no place like home." So at least thinks Mr. Walter C. Kelly, a '•famous Virginian judge," whose fame appears to be confined to Virginia. This gentleman recently completed a world's tour, during which he travelled some 24,000 miles and sampled a good bit of King George's dominions. The result is that he is glad to be back in America, where no doubt he finds his humor more appreciated than elsewhere, and his comparisons of America with other countries quite to the taste of the peoi pie. This is what ho says: For peace and comfort, for good wages for the working man, opportunity for talent or genius, common conveniences that in older lands have not even become necessities, and for allround life of case and comfort we have the re.st of the world distanced. And then he goes for )H»pr Jittle New Zealand and her people, tlarken to him!, proud residents iu "Cod's Own Count',

New Zealand is il country you read ;i lot about, because it is supposed to tie advanced. I was there last sum," iiicv—tluit i-\ summer in New Zealand and winter hero, and I'll never go there any more. No doubt New Zealand is a prosperous eountry in spots. It is a country where the women vote. And it is entirely under the domination of (■Scotch Presbyterians. Heaven save us from the kind of laws they have in New Zealand! They haven't been able to stop the sun shining yet, but they'll try to do so. New Zealand as a country is the result of the poverty of England and Scotland. The people in New Zealand are so afraid they may happen back into their old starvation state that they are the tightest wads 011 the habitable globe. A New Zealander wouldn't pay five tents to see King George and Queen Mary in a double trapeze act. Hut Australia is quite another dish—a dish much to Mr. Kelly's liking, thanks chiefly, it seems, to Mr. Bill Corbett, of Sydney. Listen: Australia is a country like our Middle West in respect to the people. It is also a country of spacious solitudes. There are places in Australia where a ghost would lie companionable. The cities aiv regular places. Sydney and Melbourne are well cared for. The average Australian is broad-minded, a hustler ami a sporUman. Outside ot a larrikin element from the slums of Croat I'ritain there, are 110 more fairminded people than Australians. 1 met Bill Corbntt. of the -Sydney Referee. in his own town, and what In! did to put me in the way of hospitality almost put me out of business. The thousands of Americans who met l.'orbelt when- he. was here to attend the catastrophe, at Bono may size him up as a type of the Australians. The Melbourne Cup is probably the greatest race the world can show. 1 have seen the Derby, the (irand Prix in Paris, the, big fixtures at Sheephead Bay and Saratoga, and none, of them compares with this race. There no track in the world than can com- . pare ill beauty with that of Melbourne. Mr. Kelly has a little to say about South Africa, which he somewhat inadequately describes as " a land of mineral wealth and whiskers." and "a desolate wart on the face of nature." lie waxes sarcastic at the expense .of the leisurely railway service, and of Capetown. There, a native-born asked him whether he didn't think the town nicely laid out. "Yes." said Mr. Kelly, "that's so. But why delay the burial?''

Concerning England and the English, Mr. Kcllv lias a good deal to say. hut considerations of space Ihiulk quotation, ile saw some good in the Old Country and i.t r people, but a good deal that was not to his liking. As in New Zealand and South Africa lie failed, it seemed, to run across a Bill C'orbctt to show him round.