In your last issue n review appeared which regretted that the contents of "Spike" "were not New Zealand literature at all." I should like to suggest that this need" not be a serious drawback. The pattern of life in New Zealand still bears a considerable resemblance to the pattern of life in other English-speaking countries. For instance, solemn diehards still pass collection plates in churches; ladies at afternoon teas still make remarks which have a distinct flavour of Jane Austen's novels; household pets flourish abundantly. If a writer prefers to draw his material from these sources, instead of from sheep stations, native bush and Maoris, does his choice detract from the merits (or add to the demerits) of his work?

Again, your reviewer seems to as same that literature ought to be an expression of the national spirit. I would not wish to maintain that there is no value whatsoever in a distinctly national literature—it is indeed very pleasant to discover a novel or play that captures the peculiar atmosphere of the country in which, or the set of people among whom, one happens to live. But after all, is not the greatest work universal in appeal? Do we think less highly of the Sermon on the Mount, or the sublimest passages in Plato's "Republic" because "From internal evidence it would be difficult to discover its country of origin?"—Yours, etc.,