Sydneysider Goes Walkabout

Debits, Credits And Hogget In Maoriland

Noo Zealand, said the American woman sitting near us in the ship’s grill, is a nice little country—but.

THE buts included the hotels, which were “old and just horrible”; the food which was “terrible”; and the liquor laws which were “archaic”.

All legitimate tourist howls of course —many of them justified, but only part of the New Zealand story.

A few hotels in New Zealand, particularly those run by the semi government Tourist Hotel Corpora :ion, compare favourably with any, anywhere. Some of the brewery iotels are now being renovated also, jut too often NZ hotels are Victorian relics, furnished in black oak and Lhe Stag-at-Bay and permeated by the smell of boiled mutton and Drussel-sprouts.

Food in most hotels shows com plete lack of imagination and often ;he abuse of excellent raw materials.

NZ must be the only country in the world where boiled or roast hogget appears naked and unashamed on ;ven the best menus (because NZ-ers tiave a fancy that hogget has a better flavour than lamb).

Moreover, it usually arrives on liners’ plates looking as though the cook has been deprived of his carv ing knife and has had to resort to snipping pieces of meat from the ioint with the kitchen scissors.

When an English woman journalist pointed this out recently every New Zealand hackle rose, although the journalist had common sense on her side when she said that such chunks of meat, served to tourists, were not likely to help the export market for lamb.

Wonderful Pastry

But in contrast to the evil things cooks can do with meat and vege tables, NZ bakers produce fantastic arrays of cakes, pastries, buns and pies, with and without lashings of real cream, all calculated to increase the waistline and make the eyes of the sweet-tooth drop right out of his head. More often than not, too, NZ housewives cook like cordon bleu angels.

NZ hotel-keeping is still, by and

large, a hit and miss affair—con ducted as though the proprietor had just read up about it in an overseas magazine and was trying to put what he read into practice.

Due to the over-full employment position in the Dominion, domestic staff, or staff for the more menial jobs, is difficult to get. (When we arrived at the new downtown Auckland air terminal at 11 a.m. there was no one to carry a bag and we were told that although there was a coffee shop it was temporarily closed as the girl in charge had gone away to eat.)

Australian Girls

About 90 per cent, of the waitresses in NZ hotels are Australian girls on working holidays, who move from one pub to another down the whole length of the two islands.

Back home they are solicitors’ clerks or stenographers and as amateurs are devoid of the Aus tralian professional waitresses take it-and-be-damned-to-you attitude and are consequently a great success.

Male hotel staff, away from the cities, may well be recruited from the building trade or bus services as a spare-time job.

Liquor laws, on world standards, are archaic, as our American said, although neither New Zealanders or visitors appear to have much difficulty in imbibing their full alcoholic re quirements.

Hotel bars close at 6 p.m., as they still do in some Australian States; the expanding licensed club of NSW is absent; and licensed res taurants are few. Pre-meal drinks in the latter are restricted to vermouth, Dubonnet or beer; you may not have sherry (because it’s “fortified”) or spirits. As a result most tourist eating is done in hotels.

NZ Authority is still puritan over grog.

Each general election, every three years, is accompanied by a referen dum on liquor. Voters have the choice of voting for Continuance

of present laws); State Control; or •rohibition. NZ-ers have been doing his for years and years and Con inuance always wins the day, but he anti-liquor lobbyists never give ip.

In tourism New Zealand is still in state of transition. It has spectacu ar, unique and beautiful natural ssets, good roads and transport acilities but has been slow to cash n on this obvious way of earning luch-needed overseas funds. Five ears from now it will be a very lifferent story.

Tourists are already coming in in steady stream, mostly in the form if the package-deal organised tour ffiich hits the Dominion in about ive of the recognised tourist spots, trains available accommodation to he limit and then goes its way. ourist organisations set their sights m this type of tourist at present— ometimes to the neglect of the in dividual, discriminating tourist mak ag his own way, although he usually las far more to spend and a great leal more influence overseas, where satisfied customer could matter aost.

But tourist spots and tourism are mall beer in the overall picture of 'lew Zealand where 2i million icople, 12,000 miles from the world’s aarkets, have done better for them elves than anywhere else on earth.

Ush Pastures

Agricultural science and aerial top- Iressing have turned the country, rom the far south to the far north, nto a vast sea of lush pastures, 'race elements have reclaimed iracken country; introduced bugs lave wiped out formerly useless aanuka scrub; hormone sprays have •een used on gorse and broom and he result is green farmland that □oks, to the uninitiated, like a uccession of exclusive golf-clubs.

When I was a kid in Southland •rovince, it was an area given over 0 dairying, turnip growing and timber nilling.

These days the timber is cut out; he butter factories are closed and n their place are rolling sheep tudded pastures—and 200-300 acres >f it are sufficient to give a farmer 1 prosperous living.

Of the big timber mill where I lived is a child on the edge of the bush lothing now remains but our house, low a farm homestead.

New Zealand is one of the few :ountries in the world where farm ng really pays—and of all the farms, hose of Southland pay best.

But Southland has long, long vinters and short summers and it is

the ambition of many Southlanders to go north to the sun—with the inevitable result that while money is made in the south it is frequently spent in the north and there is a continual leak of population in the same direction.

Auckland, with its 500,000 people, has one-fifth of the population of the whole Dominion, while Dunedin, with less than 70,000, has scarcely grown at all in the last quarter century. (As a result of this Auckland real-estate values are out of all pro portion to those in the rest of NZ and can make even Sydney values look like the bargain-basement).

The cost of living in NZ, even allowing for exchange, is mouth wateringly low by Australian standards. NZ butter at 2/- alb is about one-third of that across the Tasman; NZ bread, milk and cream about half Australian rates and meat is considerably cheaper. Imported fruit (oranges from Australia and pineapples from Hawaii) are expensive but local vegetables reasonable. Manufactured goods are a little dearer, but NZ has better social services than Australia— including a pension for everyone over 65, without a means-test, and a comprehensive national health plan.

Most visitors away from the tourist crawl soon find themselves asking how this Elysium was created and is maintained. The fact that it is a

compact, tight little country, whose natural fertility has been enriched by scientific know-how, obviously has

something to do with it; its assured market in Britain (or assured until now), for its primary products has been a factor. But probably the New Zealand temperament which has pro duced governments that have been fundamentally sound and sober, if sometimes unimaginative, whether from Conservative or Labour ranks, is the decisive factor.

Averaged out over the whole com muni t y, New Zealanders have probably a better standard of living and more creature comforts than any other people on earth—and a lot of the complacency that goes with them.

For the above reasons, as well as his own pride of country and the in grained belief that he is superior and more refined than an Australian, the Maorilander is less than enthusiastic at the idea of being tied at the end of the Australian kite, in any future union.

New Zealand has plenty of economic problems—most of them hinging on foreign exchange and the uncertainty of its present markets for primary produce. But as a country, in a world where new nations are born every day, it is a shining ex ample of how a couple of million people, as a community, can survive, prosper and, what is more to the point, pay their own way with hand outs from abroad.