The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News The Echo and The Sun. FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1934. THE VALUE OF TRAVEL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 134, 8 June 1934, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News The Echo and The Sun.

FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1934. THE VALUE OF TRAVEL.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the icrong that needs resistance For the future in the distance, And the good thai *ce can do

What does lie know of New Zealand who only Rotorua knows, asks the GovernorGeneral, and goes on to inquire what the New Zealander knows of his own country when he has never seen Rotorua or other local attractions. Everywhere, as Lord Bledisloe recognises, there is the type that does not know what its own country holds. Numbers of New Zealanders have been abroad without acquiring first a reasonably full knowledge of the beauties of their own land. On the other hand, there are New Zealanders who could instruct Londoners in the beauty and historic interest of their own city. What is near at hand is often overlooked. Many Londoners, if they think of Westminster Abbey or the Tower at all, reflect that they can see these places at any time, and the years pass without a visit being made. A colonial, on the other hand, makes it his business to go there. Mr. Bernard Shaw commented on New Zealand ignorance of the Waitomo caves. It would be interesting to know how many residents in that district have not seen them.

We should all be grateful to Lord Bledisloe for his glowing tribute to this country's scenery and wonders, aud his impressive tribute to the value of travel. The tourist traffic from abroad affects us in two respects. It is worth a great deal of money, and nothing eould be more telling on this point than the Governor-General's citation of Canada's experience, which is that to that Dominion the tourist is more valuable than the wheatfield. It is possible that one day our scenery and our wonders will bring us a larger return than any other asset. The traffic is also necessary to us because of the contact it produces between this remote country and the outside world. But Lord Bledisloe does not stress only the necessity for encouraging the world to come to our unequalled collection of attractions. He urges us to know our own country. And there is a benefit to be derived from this beyond the pleasure it gives the traveller. Travel by New Zealanders in New Zealand is necessary if provincial prejudices are to be broken down and a real national spirit cultivated. Such prejudice, ignorance and selfishness have cost the country dearly in the past; and for many years we shall go on paying interest on those mistakes. Yet there is still much ignorance of the South in the North and of the North in the South. There - are people in the South Island who do not realise, because they have not seen it with their own eyes, the growth of the Auckland province. There are people in the North who for the same reason do not realise how greatly the South Island differs from the' North in climate and natural features, and what the effect of this has been on economic, political and social development. Dunedin has not forgotten that unfortunate Auckland reference to a "fishing village." The South Island is as different from the North as Yorkshire or Cumberland is from Devonshire. A New Zealander is not properly educated in respect to his native land until he has seen all of it and has intelligently compared its differences in town and countij life and in the beauty of Nature.