ARE WE SMUG?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 472, 9 July 1948, Page 16

ARE WE SMUG?

Sir--Smug means absurdly self-satis-fied and complacent. ee John Green of the BBC says that collectively we are smug. He had a lot to do with our farmers, and certainly, they are smug; but then so are the watersiders, the Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Labour, etc., etc. But if Mr. Green had studied our press he would have noticed that inspired preachers of various kinds are continually pointing out that our economics and finances are incredibly stupid, that our relations with the rest of the world are a champion muddle, that our labour value is deplorably low and our costs deplorably high, that we spend too much time and money at the races, that even our little boys and girls are going to the pack, petting each other in the provocative gloom of the cinemas, and so on and so on, Can a community thus held perpetually in the dissecting room truly be said to be smug? The New Zealander no doubt feels himself to be as good as the next man; and so does the Englishman, the Scot, the Irish, Scandinavian, Dutch, Belgian, French, Canadian, U.S.A. citizen and all the rest of the units in the various nations. Smugness isa sort of protective mechanism against the reforming urge, and it brings to maught much of the zeal expended in United Nations’ meetings, which exhibit the quintessence of smuggery, so to speak, where each delegate is complacently certain that his views, his nation’s "way of life’" is best for all if only the stupid all would see it. The world is so full. of vocal smugness seeking to set the rest of us right that one murmurs dazedly: If all the world was apple-pie And all the sea was ink, And all the trees were bread and cheese, What would we do for drink? It’s enough to make an old man groan And scratch his head and think.

J. MALTON

MURRAY

(Oamaru).