Our Own Country
VERY THING that makes us sensibly aware of.our own country is good, Everything that makes us forget it, or apologise for it, or complain about it, or indulge in snobbish regrets about it, is bad. All these things some of us continually do, and it is a duty therefore to draw attention to such a wholesome influence in the other direction as the New Zealand Geographer may some day become. We say some day because the history of serious periodicals in New Zealand is not exactly exciting. The Geographer has yet to take, root firmly enough to survive periods of storm and of drought, but the second number is better than the first, and the first was very good. To begin with, it has a well written and beautifully illustrated article on New Zealand’s weather — how to know what is coming, how to say what is coming, how to prepare for it and adapt ourselves to it; since forecasting involves all those things. That article fills 20 pages, and the next ten are filled by a summary of a discussion on population-whether the world has too many people or not enough, whether a nation can, by taking thought, permanently increase in numbers or permanently shrink, whether there is such a thing as an optimum population, and if there is, what the figure would be for New Zealand. And then from the weather and the population the editors turn naturally, and very urgently, to the covering of the land itself-not the forest covering this time, but the tussock, fern and scrub that originally clothed more than a quarter of our total land surface. To this problem they devote 15 pages, some of them highly controversial, but all focusing attention on the changes fire has already made in our environment and on the appalling further changes (the editors think) it will make soon if we do not learn to control it. The editors may be right or wrong, prophets or mere alarmists. The point is, their subject all the time is New Zealand and New Zealanders, our own country, our own people, and what they and we can do to protect and enrich it.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19451130.2.12
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 336, 30 November 1945, Page 5
Word count
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365Our Own Country New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 336, 30 November 1945, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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