As Others See Us

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 40, 17 April 1930, Page 24

As Others See Us

What Marshal N. Dana Says | -- ISTHNERS will remember a very interesting talk given last year by Marshal N. Dana, associate editor of the "Portland Journal," Oregon. On his return to the States Mr. Dana wrote a series of articles upon this Dominion, and its dairy industry in particular. Im‘ one of these articles he has ithis to say of. New Zealand and its people :- "Wherever they are, New Zealanders work with beauty around them. Theirs is a cool, green land with the wind always blowing. Across the bitter Tasman Sea, their Austri "tan neighbours, drought-afflicted, produce a self-containing range of yields in' a self-created atmosphere of industrial disputes and government control of business. But the New Zealanders are content to go on soberly and seriously, making fortunes out of grass, living ‘within their incomes, borrowing little and conducting their affairs in an atmosphere of thrift. "heir pride is to be "More British than the British.’ But the British they emulate are those of the yesterday. Children go quaintly to school in uniforms; the flapper and flaming youth are little known around New Yealand’s shores. Motorists drive cars, 85 per cent. American, on second grade highways with thrillingly narrow turns and one-car bridges. Passengers book seats in cindery wooden cars with spoked wheels and rattle up and down over the hills. at a cost per ticket greater than America’s Pullmans or observation coaches. The railway sy#tem is at tag ends. ‘The hydro-electric plants are disconnected and the high rates lead to single light effects that would driye an illuminating ‘en- ’ gineer to tears. "Only dairying and sheep-raising are standardised and the future must hold uniformity in nearly all public services, yet the New Zealander goes along happily, with showers raining down the blessings of heaven upon the grass in every month of the year and he wouldn’t trade social or economic status with anybody. "And in the dairy, but not in the sheep industry co-operation has gone beyond anything the world has elsewhere ever seen.

"Nada" has gone for inspiration to the lore and history of the Maori, and her song of the Pawa River is musieal enough, with its setting of red rata and golden-blossomed kowhai. J.S.: The glory that is Egmont is extolled by this contributor in a paean of praise which is too long and meticulous. The = spiritual mountaineer on the slopes of Parnassus must be prepared for a steep and rocky climb. "Ginger’s" topical verses are good, but not good enough. "Oh, Mack" sends a musical lay of the seabirds, those fascinating feathered fowl of which many poets have sung. Do you remember-

"My love she is fair, she is bette than fair to me; , She puts me in mind of a wild whit seagull flying over the sea"? VY. May Cottrell has done competen work in the two poems submitted of which we prefer "Love’s Lute." "Wisherman’s Luck": Say it in prose "Orlando" sends. sentimental outpour ings to a Rosalind of the moment which unfortunately do not scan. "Zero’: The legion of the poets is small and exclusive one, and "Zero’ is not of the elect. "Daystar": Nil desperandum. "A Tramp": A drab subject, withou distinction of treatment. "Mary of Argyle’: A brave attempt but it fails.