Like many another circumstance in New Zealand, the problem of the expatriate is implicit in the conditions that governed the early colonisation of this country, though it is doubtful if the pioneers gave very much thought to it. Almost any discussion about this country will, sooner or later, turn about its geographical isolation and its small population. New Zealanders are an emergent people and are as yet not able to absorb all their native talent. They are also a lonely people, at so great a distance from the source of their culture that frequent short-term visits or exchanges are beyond the means of most of them. It is inevitable in a community that has come into being through a tough, unremitting struggle with the land itself that the emphasis should be on material gains and on visible, useful, and tangible development. The attitudes of the early settlers are the attitudes of many of their living descendants and this is particularly true of the arts and of pure scholarship: in a considerable number of New Zealand minds they are regarded as trimmings, fair enough as far as they go, but not to be compared with a hydro-electric dam or the manufacture, under licence, of a new type of gentlemen's underwear. This is a perfectly natural point of view and the wonder of it is that there should be so many New Zealanders who hold to a different scale of values.
It can be argued that it was inevitable that Katherine Mansfield, Frances Hodgkins, and Ernest Rutherford should leave this country. Neither the writer nor the painter had her peers in New Zealand and there were virtually no links with the immensely exciting changes and revolts that stimulated their European contemporaries; nothing to fight against, except polite indifference. For the physicist there were simply no facilities for research on the level for which he was destined. They went away and they did not return, and it was right that this should be so.
Before and since their day there have been other expatriates whose loss we cannot but regret, but must recognise as inevitable: among the painters there were Dora Meeson, Raymond McIntyre, and James Cook; among the writers, Pember Reeves, John Mulgan, and James Courage. Many singers, instrumentalists, and an increasing number of actors have trained abroad and never returned. Nor is this constant exodus confined to the pure arts. Today there are in England, America, and Europe, New Zealand surgeons, physicians, scholars, men of law, men of science, men of business, engineers, nurses, designers, broadcasters, and television experts. Some of them may wish, from time to time, that they could find comparable opportunities in their native country but for few of them does the suitable opening occur.
Nobody is going to say of these New Zealanders that they ought to come back. They are themselves and they have the right to order their own lives and develop such talents as they possess in the climate that is most favourable to them. May it not be urged that the responsibility lies at home, that it is time New Zealanders examined this state of affairs and asked themselves, for example, whether the balance of opportunity in New Zealand needs a new look? How does the salary of a schoolmaster or a lecturer in a New Zealand university compare, first, with the equivalent salary in other countries, and then with the wages of semi- or unskilled labour in New Zealand? How far is the disparity, if one exists, a matter of necessity, of sound judgment, or of dictation from sources that are not qualified to judge? How big an effort is being made to give young New Zealanders an awareness of their place, even though it is a remote place, in the history and growth of European culture, that they are a living extension of a great cultural tradition, and that their growth, as a thinking people, is historically and organically linked with the outside world and must be dependent upon it? Geographically, New Zealand may be out on a limb, but as long as the sap flows it is a branch of no mean tree.
One of the difficulties in discussing the present situation and the consequent drain away of talent rests on the circumstance of there being very few countries with whom New Zealanders may profitably compare themselves. This is an extremely young country. The circumstances under which it was settled, the declared aims and objects of the pioneers, and the overall pattern of development have no exact contemporary parallel: there are no other truly comparable countries. In size alone, apart from its early history, Australia offers no useful talking point. New Zealanders are a small community in a small country: the crux of the matter is whether they have too low a saturation point when it comes to using their most gifted people.
In the growth and emergence of the New Zealand Welfare State over the past 30 years, certain points of view have come to light. They are perhaps implicit in any social structure that has as its principal ideal the concept of the greatest good for the greatest number. There is an unspoken mistrust of any kind of élite, not only socially, but intellectually as well. In the schools and universities, overcrowded, understaffed, and constantly expanding as they are, there is an unavoidable tendency to let the brilliant student get on with it while the rank and file are crammed over their educational fences and brought up to examination levels. Opportunities for specialisation and experiment are not conspicuous in the general scheme. Postgraduate development is in many cases only to be had by going to another country for it. And the brilliant graduate goes. He becomes very highly equipped in his special subject and arrives at a point where his own country can offer him nothing that measures up to the opportunities that present themselves elsewhere.
New Zealanders do very well in Great Britain. Once the early loneliness, defensiveness, and inverted arrogance wears off, they soon become acclimatised and they have a very high reputation. It is perhaps true to say that, of all importations from the Dominions, New Zealanders are the most welcome and the most popular. They retain their independence of outlook and their initiative and they lose their insularity. For the most part, they prosper. It is not to be wondered at that so many of them never return; those that do, sometimes find that they have made a mistake.
Any criticisms that may be levelled at the possible neglect of talent in this country fall flat when it comes to music. The establishment of the National Symphony Orchestra, the New Zealand Opera Co., the New Zealand Ballet Co., and the Chamber Music Society are magnificent achievements. Their standard of performance is admirable, they attract visiting artists of the first rank, and they offer professional work at a high level to local instrumentalists. It is significant that New Zealand's two leading composers, Douglas Lilburn and David Farquhar, have both studied abroad and then returned to work and to teach in this country. With the establishment of a conservatorium, when it comes, there will be no need for any but the most highly gifted music students to study abroad and, for those that do so, there will be every reasonable incentive to return. With the will, the foresight, and the understanding to bring about such an advance in musical achievement, one feels that the State will before long give comparable help to another and allied art: that of the theatre.
It is here, in the living theatre, that one sees the biggest deadlock. Drama in New Zealand is a puzzle. The country is said to possess more amateur societies for its population than any other in the world. There are drama competitions and drama festivals but, above the level of light musicals and out-of-date farces, New Zealand is unable to support a full-scale professional theatre of any scope or stability. It is true that broadcasting and television offer a limited field to a handful of extremely able directors and a number of part-time players. It is also true that there are State bursaries that give a year or two years' training at British drama schools. If these bursars display real talent, what are their prospects if they decide to return to New Zealand? To what? There are in England at the present time several young players from this country, all of whom are in constant work in the most competitive and uncertain field that exists. The prospect of any one of them returning, as things stand at the moment, is dim indeed. Are New Zealanders, then, as a community more musically than theatrically inclined? If so, why all the amateur activity? Is there any chance of a State-subsidised theatre on the same scale as the National Orchestra? Can the costs of touring a company, staggeringly high as they undoubtedly are, be more formidable than the costs of moving a symphony orchestra, a ballet, or a grand opera about the country? Whatever the answer, the fact remains that, of all expatriates, the actor, as things stand, is the least likely to return.
Writers are in a different class. A writer is the most solitary of craftsman and the most self-contained. Whether, like James Courage, he works and publishes in England, or whether, like the best of our poets, he stays in New Zealand, his books appear and are read in both countries by people whom they are likely to please. Janet Frame lives in England and writes about New Zealand. If, like Allen Curnow and Kenneth Melvin, for instance, the author is also a lecturer in a university, or if in any other way he enriches what Americans call the “cultural stream”, then, of course, his absence would be a direct loss.
Finally, the painters, draughtsmen, and sculptors. They, perhaps more than any of the other groups discussed, do tend to remain in New Zealand. They, too, are given certain travelling grants. Those of them who win these awards seem, nowadays, to be drawn back to their country. Perhaps the most notable exception is Douglas McDiarmid who, after a brief return, has settled in Paris where his paintings have become widely known. There is no doubt that progressive bodies, such as the Auckland Gallery, have had a considerable influence in retaining many of our contemporary artists.
The overall picture, then, is of an emergent society not yet able to contain and nourish all its best talent. One may argue about the extent of New Zealand's concern with the steady drain away, but no one should question the right of any New Zealander to seek the best climate for his own development. Let us be aware of the problem and recognise the need for advancement. A society gets the culture it deserves.
by Edith Ngaio Marsh, O.B.E., F.R.S.A., HON.D.LITT., Authoress, Christchurch.