"GET A HUSTLE ON."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 297, 8 May 1913, Page 8

"GET A HUSTLE ON."

WHAT YOUNG NEW ZEALANDERS NEED. AN AMERICAN'S VIEWS. Full of the vigorous hustle for which the Americans are marked and obsessed with the desire that the young man should set his face on climbing to the top, an interesting visitor to Gisborne has been a typical young American, Mr. N. A. Shay. He has been wide-awake during his sojourn here as representative of a New York commercial concern, and had some interesting impressions to discuss with a Gisborne Times reporter. Mr. Shay believes that New Zealand is an advancing little corner of the globe, and he feels that it is' about to "get moving," in the fullest sense of the term. With our cities, he is pleased and not a little surprised. Commercially, he found Dunedin as sound as it is generally supposed to be, while Christchurch impressed him as something sombre and less possessed of the go-ahead' spirit thai other places. Wellington was a wideawake city and astoundingly up-to-date, and as to Auckland, Mr. Shay agrees that it is a city to be. Auckland, he thinks, has a brilliant future. The place iwas becoming' modern, the customs from the outer world which make for activity I and progress were being adopted, and business was, to use the visitor's own words, "running at high tide." ( It is questionable whether Mr. Shay's next impresison does not speak in favor of New Zealand, the fact being that he is like a fish out of water, owing to the absence of'the alluring night-life. Life, he says, really begins in Uncle Sam's country when New Zealand settles down to slumber. Gaiety prevailed, and it was part of the daily routine to while away an hour or two amid the glamor of the electric lights and the conviviality .of the cafes. But on this Mr. Shay had something interesting to say. The accepted story of prematurely old men, whom Mr. Foster Fraser and others said gained grey hairs owing to the unrestrained, "hustle" of the daily life, was not one of fact. The truth was that the tendency of dissipation and enjoyment indulged in during the hours which Nature intended for • sleep brought on the silver threads and made young men old. In the steamer at anchor in the Gisborne roadstead Mr. Shay was in two minds about going ashore. "And," he says, "I am surprised about the life of your little town." Gisborne impressed him as being a bright spot, with plenty, of energy in a business way. As to the newly-installed cars, he was a believer in the' Edison storage' battery system. They were a good stamp of car for flat roads, similar to those in operation' in 28 and 29 streets, New York. The storage .service there proved a success, and was being extended for many miles "up town." "New: Zealand," he added, "is a business t country and a big siirprise packet for 6'ne coming so many thousand miles. One r ;thihg has struck me greatly, and that is that the young fellow does not display, that commendable push which' characterises the young American. On your municipal councils and the like there; seems to be a conspicuous absence of the youthful element. The boys take longer to climb the ladder, and do not settle! down to it in real darn earnest at att early enough age." The heads of departments in tiie firms he had had to deal/Vitli were mostly years older thsii thosis of America. In America, it did not take a likely lad long to ascend to the height of manager. His advice to the lads was to "buck in" and set their minds, on early success. 111 ■ ' ■