PURE IGNORANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 162, 11 July 1934, Page 14

PURE IGNORANCE.

NEW ZEALAND AFFAIRS EXAMPLES SEEN ABROAD. CALAMITY AT "WHANGANE." (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, July 5. The other day one of our newspapers, commenting on the current films, remarked that the part of a duchess in "Horse Play," a Slim Summerville farce, taken by "the Australian actress May Bcatty." An indignant Maorilandcr at once wrote to claim May Bcatty as New Zealand - born — reviving rocollections of Beatty's Hotel in Christchurch, close to the old Theatre Royal, where Mrs. Bcatty dispensed the hospitality that made her famous throughout our theatrical world. May and Maud were her daughters, and they first appeared through the agency of Tom Pollard in the palmy days of his Juvenile Opera Company, the nursery of so many stapc celebrities of later years. May Beatty has had a long and distinguished career, including successful London seasons, and old-timers in Xew-Zealand will certainly resent any attempt to label her Australian. " Town of Taranaki." But as a matter of fact the people over here have still very hazy ideas about New Zealand. In the very last issue of the "'Sunday Sun" there is a "block" — incidentally a very sketchy and smudgy picture—of Mount Egmont, which "provides the town of Taranaki, North Island, New Zealand, with a background of exotic beauty." Mount Egmont looks all right, hut "the town of Taranaki" resembles Inglewood or some other country hamlet photographed in a had fog. But no one here seems to know any tetter. The other night at the pictures I heard Graham MeNamee, the American "talking reporter," discoursing upon a fearful earthquake that recently destroyed "Whangane," in New Zealand. "No more appalling convulsion," said Mr. McNamee, interjecting "Gee!" arid "Oh, boy!" at rapid intervals —"has devastated Maoriland for 40 years—the damage ran into millions." And on the screen there appeared a liarrowing picture of "Whangane" after it was devastated—houses in ruins, great fissures in the earth, and all the appropriate concomitants of such a visitation. The view of "Whangane" may have been taken at Napier three years ago—or it may have been a picture of the suburbs of San Francisco after the great 'quake, now 30 years back.

But isn't it time for our Tourist Department to do something about these earthquake pictures? At least our official representatives might publicly assure Australia that "Whangane" was never destroyed in an "appalling convulsion" which caused "millions" of damage, and that Taranaki is not a

gloomy little village nestling at the foot of Mount Egmont.