The Daily News. FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1912. CASUAL CRITICISM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 88, 30 August 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1912. CASUAL CRITICISM.

One of the inflictions which is almost lev* desirable than the undesirable alien is that of the globe-trotter who rushes I through the country by train and steamer and motor-car, -doing" New Zealand inside a month, and then journeying abroad to spread his impressions of the country and its polities, and its people, and its lack of manners, and its language, and its personality, and the size of the girls' feet, and generally making an abject and unmitigated ass of himself of three-and-a-quarter kinds. Of course, in this ''sorry scheme of things entire," this sort of •'haughty and dignerfied" person does not count for much more than a pipi on the beach, and we can afford to shed their lucubrations like so much water off a duck's back. Everybody is not blessed with the intelligence of the Hon. James Bryce or the breezy acumen of the New South Wales League team, both of whom have expressed a very proper appreciation of the social life of the country, and of the calm and prosperous serenity of its existence generally, as well as unqualified approval of its scenic splendors, while admiting frankly to an entire ignorance of its politics. But even when the intense egotism of some of our casual critics finds expression in a condemnation of all our systems, from the gauge of the railways to the height of the heavens, it is less hurtful than when some unpatriotic colonial presents a biased view of local quarrels to outside communities under the guise of impartiality. The Dominion contains a whole lot of people suffering from eacoethes scribendi, when they ought to have mumps or housemaid's knee, or some other innocuous complaint that would keep them quiet, who spend their spare time in abusing their political opponents in letters intended for publication on the other side of the world; and it is to be feared that in many cases their highly colored statements are accepted abroad at their face value. A communication from an Auckland correspondent, published in a recent issue of the Cape Times, provides an admirable illustration of this particular form of literary dishonest}-. The correspondent affects to be giving South African readers "a brief explanatory resume" of the political situation in New Zealand. His gentle method of doing this is to depict Sir Joseph Ward and "Mr. Robert MacKcnzie" (whoever he may be), a.s politicians "devoid of principle and honesty." He says that after the general election Sir Joseph Ward refused to meet Parliament until "a movement was proposed to secure the intervention of the Governor." Then the Prime Minister "capitulated." Next, this amiable and highly imaginative person discusses a mysterious

loan—"a little thing of £4,000,000, which the Prime Minister was arranging for entirely on his- own responsibility"—and' quotes some of the things that the Dominion was in the habit of saying about loans before Mr. Jas. Allen presented his Budget. "What the Wellington journal says and asks," he continues with comfortable complacency, "most people in "New Zealand are saying and asking." This is capped by a series of general accusations of bribery and pledge-breaking, and "nobbling" of independent members, and attacks wholesale upon the Mackenzie Ministry. The criticism, of course, does not amount to two-pennyworth of sense, but if only Ananias were not dead and this mysterious l critic could be flushed from the shelter of his anonymity, we would be willing to match him as a pcrverter of the truth, at weight for age, even against such veterans as Baron Munchausen, Rougemont, Ananias and other champions of the glittering pa*t.