Near Palmerston: August 20
I have spent four days in the country near Palmerston. As you travel in the train the country is more like eastern Siberia than ever. In the distance you see a sharp range of blue hills, in the foreground a flat plain on which little squat one-storied wooden houses with red iron roofs are dotted about.
The small provincial cities, too, are—as in Australia—very like the provincial towns in Russia. The streets are broad and the houses have verandahs.
Another point of resemblance: the way the people ride. You meet children riding back from school, two on a pony. They seem to belong to the pony. They ride like little centaurs. This reminds me of the evenings in the plains of the Russian country, where one used to see the children of the village galloping off bareback on large horses and driving a lot of riderless horses to the river, to water them.
As you drive in the country in New Zealand, the first thing you notice is the tall gum-trees, and whenever you get near the bush you hear the song of strange, unfamiliar birds. No native-born New Zealand bird has wings.
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The New Zealanders are born footballers. You see the children playing everywhere. On every Saturday afternoon there is a big football match, and crowds of people look on. Rugby football is the national game of New Zealand, and I suppose the New Zealanders are the best players in the world.
At the Athletic Park Ground you often see two matches going on at once. It is extremely difficult to watch two matches at once; because the moment you begin to watch something in the one, something interesting is sure to happen in the other. One would think, speaking as an outsider, that the Rugby game is far more interesting to look on at than the Association game. But the Londoner does not think so. Every Saturday in London, and, indeed, all over England, thousands of people look on at the Association game, and they care very much less for Rugby, which they consider to be a “toff’s game.” There is, they say, “too much shirt-tearing” about it for their taste.
Rugby football in New Zealand has not yet been spoiled by professionalism. People think it is an honour to play for a team, and they are willing to travel and play all over the country for the honour of it, and without remuneration.
In England professionalism has spoiled not only football but almost every other game, with the possible exception of “Old Maid,” cribbage, and “My Bird Sings.”
The result is:—
(1) People prefer looking on at games to playing them themselves.
(2) They demand professionals and they bet on them.
(3) Some games become so professionally perfect that people no longer care to look on at them.
The passion of the crowd in England for watching football is looked upon by many people as the most ominous sign of national decadence, and as a manifestation resembling that of the gladiatorial shows in ancient Rome. They say it is this passion for watching, and for betting in the watching, that is responsible for the prevalence of professionalism. In England one local club buys a celebrated player from another local club. Therefore, it is obvious that this is the death of any real local spirit.
As for the games becoming so professional that people lose interest in them, this does not apply to football: but it does apply to cricket. In the last years there is in England a great falling-off in the public interest in cricket. The play has become so perfect that nobody cares to look at it.
And even, or rather especially, at the schools in England, games have become ultra-professional.
All this is a pity, but it does not apply to New Zealand. New Zealand has, up to now, been unspoiled by professionalism. Long may it remain so. One football enthusiast told me that the cloven hoof was making its appearance.
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What most people want to hear about New Zealand are facts with regard to the economic situation of the country: the labour question, the effects of woman’s suffrage, the drink question, prohibition, etc. Now, unless one makes a really thorough and serious study of these questions, which it is impossible to do without devoting considerable time to it, without, in fact, living in the country for a reasonable period, it is worse than useless to fire off a few superficial and dogmatic generalizations. It is for this reason that I forbear from discussing them here.