O, TO BE IN NEW ZEALAND!

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 357, 26 April 1946, Page 8

O, TO BE IN NEW ZEALAND!

Confession of a Nonentity About to Remain at Home

Written for "The Listener"

by

ELSIE

LOCKE

T is rather fashionable to speak of New Zealand as a sort of intellectual and cultural shingleslide, on which stones predominate and a few miserable and monotonous plants retain a precarious existence, while the fine and original specimens are washed out and transplanted overseas. This is called Exporting our Best Brains. We might make a conundrum: Q. When is a Brain not a Brain? A. When it stays in New Zealand. But first, my qualifications to speak as a nonentity: To begin with, I am a New Zealander of the fourth generation and have never been abroad. Second, although the adult part of my 33 years has been filled with activities educational, cultural, political, or concerning women’s place in the commun-ity-all of this has brought me no personal distinctions. Third, I am lamentably low-brow. I revel in good literature and enjoy good music, but I also like to walk and hear about such things as soil conservation, politics, world affairs, health, nutrition, schools, babies, women’s organisations, clothes, gardening, recipes, and falling in love. Fourth, I like New Zealand. I find it a joy and a stimulant to go about among our farmhands and the rugged majesty of our uncultivated spaces. And I like New Zealanders: well nigh all of them, yea, even unto the racehorse fans! Fifth, although I would certainly appreciate a period in another land, to observe, to learn, and-to look upon the faces of the mighty, I have never harboured any ambition to be Exported. * * * T is just possible that a good many genuine Brains have felt similarly. Who shall be 'the judge? Who can say, for example, which have proved the Best Brains: James Bertram, and the late John Mulgan, whose admirable work was done abroad, or their contemporaries Allen Curnow and Denis Glover, whose energies have been given to fostering their native literature? No, I am not trying to compare these with those, or to give anyone unstinted ‘praise. Four men who have worked in such different spheres are quite incommensurable: as well endeavour to select a prize-winner from a named gladiolus and a twig of mountain rata. In the absence of any medical estimate of the grey matter, who shall provide a yardstick? % * * PERHAPS then, our intellectual barrenness is so complete that art, culture, science and even courtesy cannot

flourish, and the Brains are liable to atrophy? I would be far from denying the large element of truth in the criticism with which we are regularly lectured. We are a very remote country, we have only a million and a-half inhabitants and we have been settled (except for the Maoris) for little more than a century. Who would expect another London? So a sort of small-town consciousness may cause some of us to bewail the fact that all is lost and we are wallowing in a vegetative existence. But is this true? No one has shown me any relevant statistics, but I am willing to wager that if it were possible to count up the people who take a lively and intelligent interest in art, music, drama, literature and science, and check the numbers per thousand of population, we would show up as well as our friends in England. Naturally the aggregate number will be much less; we will not expect to find giants among them; many will live in remote farms. Even those in the towns, lacking exclusive quarters for their residence, will be forced to rub shoulders with common fellows who care for nothing but beer, races and gardéning. But when I think of those tough Australian soldiers in tropical camps listening, entranced, to Beethoven played by a pianist on a truck-there may be hope even for the most lowly. We can take courage in the faith that our inborn powers are no less than those of other-humans. We do indeed require closer intercourse with world centres of culture: fortunately this is an age in which rapid transport is clearing away the back fences. Books and periodicals are strewn at our feet. Recording and radio have brought us the world’s masterpieces played by the. world’s greatest musicians. "Canned music" maybe-but who among our grandmothers, no matter where’ they lived, could have sampled such a feast? Air travel will bring us visiting performers and enable some of us to attend exhibitions. Culture is becoming readily available to all of our people, * * E might do better to bemoan our- _ selves less, and to give more. cuoperation to those who are doing a practical job. We could afford to hear less of the critics and more of, say, our undaunted group of younger poets; of Ngaio Marsh and her student company, presenting Shakespeare to packed houses: of Dr. Vernon Griffiths training the symphony orchestra at Dunedin Technical College; of the Community Centres springing up all around us-yes, we are beginning to see a green carpet in-. stead of that grey shingle-slide! If our desire is for science, we might allow the late Lord Rutherford’s memory’ to rest on his laurels, and learn more about the scientists in Otago who perfected the drug thiourea to deal with goitre; or about the agricultural research at Lincoln College and elsewhere; or

about our botanists, like Lucy Cranwell and Lucy Moore with their work on seaweeds, New Zealand is small and humble; but once we have discovered how interesting it*is, a thousand lives would be insufficient for me to explore the possibilities. * * * F course I am not quarrelling with your former contributor, R,. L. Meek. I think he should take his scholarship and study economics, after which he will decide on his sphere of work. He is not one who says that his environmeni is barren; but he does claim that it is uncongenial for one unable to conform to conventional ideas and standards. This is true enough. I am of the same minority political persuasion as Mr. Meek and, in this respect at least, 1 think I know what he means. Personally, I don’t care two hoots whether o1 not other people look askance at my non-conformity. There is reason to believe that almost all pioneers and innovators, in all times and places, have been similarly regarded. If one has confidence in one’s way of life and the creative job in hand, it is possible to laugh at narrow-mindedness, prejudice and ostracism. It would be much more difficult (even if it were wise) to seek a sanctuary from them. I am not sure that the problem would be solved by going to England. There would be the refuge of a greater number of kindred spirits; but I cannot help thinking of James Joyce writing on the Continent and hawking his Ulysses off to Paris to find a publisher. The thinds of our writers, as revealed in modern literature, give us a certain indication of the viewpoint of the intelligentsia.. Many New Zealanders express a profound dissatisfaction with our com-munity-its preoccupation with every man-for-himself, its crude materialism, its parochialism, its lack of any inner. unity or dynamic force. They feel at a dead end. Mr. Meek’s difficulty might also be, fundamentally, this impatience with the reieseinne poverty of his environment.

Yet it is a curious thing that so many English writers ate chanting on the same theme-with variations, but° still the same theme: frustration, loneliness, lack of faith in the dignity or the destiny of man. The disease is not confined to New Zealand at all. I would suggest that neither New Zealand, nor England, nor any other similar state is stagnant as a country. It is our social order which has outlived its usefulness and passed into decay, with a debasing of moral values and cultural standards. The frustration expressed by these modern writers reveals a powerful perception of reality existing in the classes among whom they live and move. Very few have seen beyond, and recognised the growing forces which will lead humanity forward into a new epoch, in which the human race may enjoy a full life in keeping with the possession of modern science and a universal accessibility to knowledge. * * * HOSE of you who have followed me with approval so far may wish to argue violently at this point. That is well. We shall be agreed at least on our right not to conform unless we want to do so. It is to our shame that brilliant tutors have been obliged to take positions in Australia because our Universities did not even pay a living wage. And there are other men whose natural bent has necessarily taken them outside our islands, such as Lord Rutherford and Rewi Alley. Yet I believé that most of us can do better work at home, for the simple reason that we have grown up here and know the fee/ of our environment. If there are also limitations, remember our national boast that a Kiwi never gets stuck in a crisis. I am an incurable optimist. I am sure that in time we can, and will, find enough brains, resourcefulness, perseverance and sheer cussedness to make our desert blossom like the rose. And if anyone counters this by telling me that New Zealanders mean England when they say Home, I shall scream, To my generation there is only one Home-New Zealand. |