MOUNTAIN GUIDES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 27, 2 February 1932, Page 9

MOUNTAIN GUIDES.

(MISTAKEN IDEA OF ACT.

REPLY TO AUCKLAND CLUB

N".Z. SCHEME ON SWISS LINES.

The statement that the Alpine Sport Club in Auckland has been legally advised that the Mountain Guides Act opens the door to a prohibition of guideless climbing was referred to-day to Mr. A. P. Harper, president of the New Zealand Alpine Club, and the originator of the scheme of licensing guides.

Mr. Harper said it had long been realised by experienced Alpine climbers that there was grave danger in allowing men to offer their services as paid guides unless they were fully qualified for the job. " The arguments in support of this," he said, " are unanswerable. Thus the Government last session passed legis. lation authorising the issue of licenses to men qualified to act as guides, and making it an offence for anyone to offer his services as a guide for payment unless he held a license. I cannot understand how anything in the Act can be construed as giving power to prohibit climbing without guides. This would be quite . ridiculous. to attempt, and also impossible to enforce. If would be resisted by every climber in the country. "In the first place the object of the Act is defined 'to make provision for the licensing of mountain guides and matters incidental thereto.' It cannot be interpreted to confer any further powers. The clause which is misunderstood gives power to the controlling board to prescribe the number of guides which 'may be' employed on any expedition. This obviously means that where any guides are to be employed on a climb the regulation can prescribe in certain cases the minimum. To argue that this gives power to say grrfdes must be employed on any climb seems quite unsound, for where no guide is employed the regulation would not apply.

"The reason for this provision is that on certain peaks it is necessary for safety that there should be two men

on the rope who are capable of leading. It would be unsafe for one guide to conduct a party unless at least one other of that party was already expert; therefore the power is given to say that under certain conditions one guide may not act alone. "This really amounts to a limitation of the guide's powers under his license and does not limit the climbers' rights to go without guides. It will prevent a licensed guide from attempting certain very difficult peaks with too large or too inexperienced a party. "The whole scheme is based on Swiss practice for the past 50 years. It has never in any way hampered guideless work in Switzerland, where there is as much guideless climbing as in New Zealand. . , .. "The Act, in my opinion, only applies to "-uides or persons wishing to act as o-uides, and cannot be made to interfere with amateur climbers. Its conditions do not come into operation until a climber asks for a guide and then it says (a) the guide must hold a license;

(b) on certain named climbs or under certain conditions one guide may not act alone."

Mr. Harper concluded by saying that any attempt to prohibit guideless climbing would be opposed by no one more keenly than by the promoters of the legislation.