THE FRIENDLY VISITOR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 943, 6 September 1957, Page 16

THE FRIENDLY VISITOR

TEN STARS SOUTH OF ASIA, by Don Taylor; Robert Hale, English price 16/-.

(Reviewed by

D. W.

McKenzie

R TAYLOR is editor of the New Commonwealth, and this book is a record of a trip through Australia and New Zealand to Fiji, a record of what the people there said to him, and what he thought about it. Inevitably his main theme refers to relations within the Commonwealth, particulatly — between Great Britain and what the dust cover calls the Dominions. I have read the book with great care, the New Zealand. section three times, because the opinions of an outside observer on one’s own country are worth the greatest consideration. It has been said that New Zealanders don’t like criticism, but lap up praise. I have yet to meet a people that doesn’t. But if personal experience is anything to go on, I have heard more biting, and more continuous criticism of our country from its own people than I have ever heard from visitors. Mr Taylor’s praise made me feel a little uncomfortable; are we really such a pleasant people? On closer reading some things become a little disquieting. Mr Taylor is a journalist, certainly, but he reflects far too strongly the opinion of newspaper editors, of whom he saw a good deal. Now editors have an occupational dis-ease-omniscience-whose chief symptom is a tendency to think that what they read in their own editorials is the truth. "The author, I fear, gives the opinions of editors too much weight. Again, his description of people one knows personally are twice as large as life and three times as dramatic-but then, of course, he’s a journalist. In fact, he seems to have met a not very representative collection of New Zealanders in that the "man in the street" hardly

appears at all, which makes a strong contrast with the variety of people he met in Australia. Having made these criticisms I should like to point out that Mr Taylor puts his finger on one or two of our many weaknesses. In several places he mildly castigates our passion for conformity"a marked tendency to elevate integrity and decency to high office, in preference to brains and energy." He gives a great deal of attention to what we think of Great Britain, both directly in our trade relations and indirectly in what we think of her leadership in the Com- | monwealth, by . quoting extensively opinions he collected from New Zealanders, some of them very revealing. He seems always just a little too kind to us, however. It seems a pity that the proofs have obviously not been seen by a New Zealander, who would have corrected the errors in names, which are far too many. He might have also pointed out such mistakes as calling a tiny hill in a photo of cattle Mt Ruapehu. If The Listener were printed on asbestos paper I would ask the Editor to print my opinion of the pitiful trav- esty of a map of New Zealand which appears on page 116, for which ordinary language is quite inadequate, But if this leaves me speechless, what can I say about the map on page 69, which shows Australia superimposed on Europe to show Australia’s vast areas and small population compared with those of another continent. The most elementary thing in drawing such a double map is that both areas should be on the same scale.» This elementary fact doesn’t trouble Mr Taylor, who blithely draws Europe and Australia on two completely different scales, so as to maké Australia 70 per cent bigger than she should be! Moreover, if such a comparison is to mean anything, comparable areas must be superimposed-the heart of Australia can only be compared with the Sahara, and to put it over rich Europe can only result in a completely wrong idea being given of population density... The first section of the book is on Australia, and appears to me very much better, though an Australian might see it differently. Mr Taylor seems to have sampled Australians much more widely than he has New Zealanders, and he tackles their weaknesses a little more vigorously than he does ours, which makes for better reading.