THE DREAMING ISLANDS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 929, 31 May 1957, Page 11

THE DREAMING ISLANDS

Sir,-Your issue of February 15 last did me the honour of devoting its entire editorial to comment on an address given by me at the National Liberal Club in London. On my return to New Zealand I was for the first time in a Position to enjoy the excellence of the prose and to regret that it should have been yoked to such indifferent argument. I had been given a short extract by letter and am glad that I resisted the urge to protest from afar. There was always the possibility that my informant might have given the wrong impression by a shortened or distorted version, worsened by being dragged out of its context. There was no need for both of us to undergo the same treatment.

I assume that my reply to correspondence in another journal will not have escaped your notice and that it will assuage your feelings in the matter of New Zealand scenic beauty. I should not have come back so soon if all that was to meet my eye was "ordinary." I trust we can forgive and forget any misunderstanding that a cabled and garbled report may have occasioned. After all, the summer was hot and mayhap it made us all a trifle drowsy. On this count but one assurance: the Wurlitzer, the travelogue and the glamorous film star are anathema to me. If I dwell in the city, so many do, the countryside is a constant magnet and joy. In somewhat strained condescension you allowed that my "peculiar views on Liberalism . .. may arouse only languid interest." Then you lay about me heavily for exhorting your fellow countrymen "to be up and doing in the cause of freedom," and lest I be accused of misquotation, "a freedom, that is, to enter unrestricted competition." Here I have incurred your wrath, but you must spread your anger to cover so many of your notable citizens whose "languid interest" induced them to form an Association for the Maintenance of Political and Economic Freedom within a few short weeks of my departure. However they may dub their "peculiar views," it will be difficult for them to escape the word "Liberalism," be the L large or small according to taste and desire to shun political affiliations for the time being. Nor will they find it easy to slough off a belief in competition. Is it fair to ask what is restricted competition? It smacks of unfair competition which usually infers that the other fellow has won. I confess to a sense of gratification at the formation of this new body. Imitation is always flattering. Theirs will be no easy task. Generations of tariff, banking, and . administrative control have entrenched central authority. It will not be easily dislodged. Nor will it ease their task that your pen, so smooth, so distinguished, s0 full of happy imagery, suspects their and my motives and outlook. And yet what better as an example than your own genius? It bears comparison with the finest, It competes with lesser mortals

and puts them in their place. They must . find your competition fierce, unre- | stricted, perhaps, in their view unfair. Life is easy only to the few, the very accomplished, the complete among us, yea. the Lord’s Anointed.

D.

GOLDBLATT

(Wellington).

(Our theme was taken solely from a report of Mr Goldblatt’s speech, and was in no way concerned with the i Constitutional Society. The formation of this body was announced in the newspapers on February 7. the day on which our issue g,

February 15 was being printed.--Ed.)