Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/38

10 America, from which it is separated by four thousand miles of sea; or, worse still, off the coast of Greenland. At the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburg—but let a New Zealander tell the story:—

"I had been but a short time in the United States," said this man, a resident of Wellington, "when one day I paid a visit to the Carnegie Museum. I am proud of my country, and I then believed it was about the only place on the map. Innocently thinking that the words would serve as a sort of open sesame to a hearty welcome, I said to the doorkeeper: 'I am from New Zealand.' "'Oh,' responded he, nonchalantly, 'we get them from all parts here. Last week we had visitors from New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and other cities. But New Zealand! Let me see. What state is it in?'"

As some persons have obtained their meagre information of New Zealand from hearsay, or from newspaper interviews or articles containing half-truths or totally erroneous statements, it is but natural that they should have mistaken ideas concerning the land that Tasman viewed from ship's deck, and that Captain Cook, at a more propitious hour, seized in England's name and stocked with pigs. Such have, among other things, heard or read that New Zealand is a Socialist country; that its government is in the hands of labor; that it has no millionaires, no slums nor paupers, no industrial strikes nor lockouts, no child laborers, no trusts, no selfish, stifling land monopoly, no private employment