The Daily News. THURSDAY, JULY 25, 1912. TERRA INCOGNITA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 57, 25 July 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, JULY 25, 1912. TERRA INCOGNITA.

The periodical wail that Xew Zealand is quite unknown in London and never heard of anywhere else is circulating thrdugh the press of Xew Zeaiand. The idea of the average correspondent is that litle- New Zealand should get up on its hind legs and yell like an infuriated continent. It is good for us, perfectly leI gitimate, and absolutely excusable that we should regard ourselves as of equal importance to Australia, Canada, South Africa or even the republic of Argentina, but it is not good for'us to yell like fifty million when we are but one—isolated, happy, and creeping steadily into place as a modest bit of dirt in the large Imperial heap. These tiring correspondents ought really;to look at the map of the world, noting particularly those considerable portions colored red (in maps produced by British firms).. In relation, to any-of the Imperial pieces mentioned, New Zealand is" as a flea to an elephant—a very good flea, be it said, but still comparatively an insect, and not a mammoth. The idea that New Zealand should regard itself as being in exactly the same category as the whole of the continent of Australia, wherein New Zealand could be lost and never discovered again, is a little grotesque. Sir George Reid talks for a continent—therefore, Sir Thingummy Thumpkins, High Commissioner for New Zealand, should be equally territorially expansive. The Commonwealth has a large, lustrous and expensive administrative building in London. New Zealand therefore should have an equally large, lustrous and expensive house in the Strand. Canada, whose untravelled territory could hide New Zealand many many times over and gasp for Japan, Java, the Pacific islands, England and Wales, the Sugarloaves and other large slices of territory, undertakes some advertising. Why doesn't New Zealand beat Canada? All these countries have to hustle for crusts for many millions of people. Tlie one million people of New Zealand are doing every pound's worth of business she can afford to do without treating her own population to the fag ends and leavings. As a matter of fact, New Zealand lives largely on stuff that would be refused entry to world markets. To pretendthat the Londoner who knows nothing about New Zealand is a fool is to suggest that the Xew Zealander is a fool who hasn't explored AVhitcchapcl, which has vastly more people than there are in islands which must assume they ar» a continent. If we could only bring ourselves into the humble mood that would permit us to understand that in the world's chess game we are but a pawn, we should get less red in the face at the insulting English school child who asserts that New Zealand is a suburb of 1 Buenos Ayres or a township on the way to Klondyke. It really doesn't matter. We are of the utmost importance—to

ourselves. As far as the great world is concerned, we don't matter twopence. If a specially large wave were to swamp us to-morrow, London would be fed just as well next week. The Czar is not perturbed that Mr. Massey has "got in." The Emperor of Germany isn't losing any sleep because Sir William Hall-Jones has left his job, and President Taft would probably be utterly bowled out if he were asked in which capital the suburb of New Zealand exists.