THIS NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 886, 27 July 1956, Page 5

THIS NEW ZEALAND

Sir-As one who considers Oliver Duff's New Zealand Wow the most original thing of its kind} and has drawn upon it repeatedly for his own writing, I am delighted to see it has been reprinted, David Hall’s admirable review raises certain points which, I suggest, are important not only in judging the book, but in studying our national development and its literary interpretation. The comments of the reviewer that "the sort of life that is led around the shores of the Hauraki Gulf and parts northwards" is very largely ignored, and that there is little mention of the Maori, led me to re-read the book. I would say it is an Otago man’s book, and so invites some consideration of what may have been formative influences. Oliver Duff was brought up in Central Otago, and graduated in Dunedin fifty years ago. The gulf between Otago and North Auckland (and indeed, Auckland city) was much wider then than now. I have written, and I hope not with great exaggeration, that the South was as ignorant of the other end of the country as London was of the Highlands at the end of the 18th century. Consider the nature of the quickest travel then, Train from Central to Dunedin and then to Lyt‘telton; ship to Wellington; train to New Plymouth; ship to Onehunga; train to Auckland; ship to some northern port; transfer to coach on bad roads or some isolated railway. Of course, it worked the other way, too. We Aucklanders were not easily drawn to travel in such conditions. Unlike the South in respect to North Auckland, however, we did not regard the other end as frontier country. I, who am of an age with Oliver Duff, went to work in Christchurch when I was twenty-three, but I was in my fifties when I first saw Dunedin adequately, and had my first sight of Central and the Mt. Cook region. Early associations afe very potent. That Oliver Duff has so little to say about the Maori may be partly due to the fact that the Maori is not a companion or a problem in Central, or anywhere else in the South Island. The reference to the Hauraki Gulf and northwards may be linked to Oliver Duff’s view that the sea has never penetrated our minds, and we have not become sailors. This I consider a serious error, I feel sure we are a sea people. We use the sea for business and pleasure and it is in our blood. If you want to know what is thought of our quality as seamen, ask the Admiralty, The handiness and initiative of the young New Zealander abroad comes partly, from knocking ‘about in boats, from canoes to yachts and launches. But this sea sense increases as you go north, or at any rate, becomes more intimate. Above a line drawn from Kawhia to the Bay of Plenty, lies a territory with its own combination of sea characteristics: tidal rivers and creeks; channels winding through sandbanks; mangroves; a plentitude of bays and harbours; some deeply indented; pohutukawas, friendliest of trees; sheltering islands; all in a climate that becomes warmer as one, . travels north. There the call of the sea is more seductive than anywhere else. The contrast between this amphibious life in a soft scene, and the Coloradolike landscape of Central, is sharp indeed. I believe I appreciate what the sight and scent of tussock, and the

a Alpine vista, mean to a Southerner, but as a result of early memories, "New Zealand" means to me, primarily, a northern tidal river and a pohutukawa. Such is the variety of this fascinating land of ours, which must in some measure produce variety among our

people.

ALAN

MULGAN

(Wellington).