THE NEW STAMPS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 196, 21 August 1933, Page 6

THE NEW STAMPS.

The impression produced by a survey of- the designs -for the new issue of Dominion postage stamps is one of disappointment. A great opportunity has been missed. Some of the subjects chosen are not the most suitable for use as national emblems, and others contain faults in drawing. The best of the designs, are those which reproduce Maori carving and painting patterns. The little fantail is decorative, the kiwi is always useful as a totem ofi the country; but most of the others compel a feeling that the trail"of the amateur is over them and that! the final selection was not in tfco best hands. Mount Eginont is included. The drawing of the peak suggests, the Great Pyramid with the top knocked off. The splendid gradual sweep of the base of Egmont is not correctly drawn, and the summit of the cone is too broad. A Japanese artist would have made something more inspiring of such a peak, the'' most beautiful natural object in Now Zealand. History is represented by a picture of Captain Cook's first landing in New Zealand. Tffii's is. adequately drawn, but why perpetuate in the title that name of ill omen '"Toverty Bay"?

The worst stamp illustration of the set is the drawing of the tuatara. -It is likely to give the impression abroad that one of New Zealand's primeval forms of wild lifo is. a creature somewhat like the East Indian Komodo dragon, on an elephantine scale. It may attract big-game hunters, eager for new food for their rifles, but not the ordinary tourist. It would be as well to withdraw this design.

The conventional view of Mitre Peak is one of the designs, but this could have been dispensed with in favour of some more attractive scene. A good picture of Lake Kotorua with Mokoia Island, a scene of which the eye does not tire, could very well have been included. Another suitable sivbject, the most wonderful landscape in the Dominion, looking across Lake Taupo to the inountains of the Tongariro National Park, has boon neglected by artists and selectors of designs. Still another omission, inexcusable, is a good pastoral scene. • There is nothing to give- the world an idea of New Zealand's resources and industries, except a reaper-and-.binder at work. The kauri, the world's most massive timber tree, would have made a distinctive design, so too would the nikau palm and the cabbage tree. 1 Tlie old pictorial stamps issued thirty years ago or more, which included scenes of such places as Lake Manapouri, were a better selection than tMs' new issue and did not contain elementary ifaults in drawing. ' —J.C.