THE TOURIST DEPARTMENT.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13651, 7 February 1910, Page 6

THE TOURIST DEPARTMENT.

The Tourist Department is now doing something which we have ineffectually urged for some years should be done. It is issuing tickets for tours and getting coirnniasion_ from coach proprietors, steamship companies, and others. It is no longer a purely philanthropic institution, keeping up very expensive offices, giving advice and information free, and sending the public elsewhere to buy tickets, while leaving private firms to get any commissions that might be earned in the business. Why it has been continued on benevolent lines so long is as great a mystery as why the fortunate firm of E. A. Smith was allowed to enjoy such exceptional advantages in the matter of -hipping commissions. We can only suppose that it ia due to the weakness inherent ,in most Government department- for shirking trouble whenever tfcis can be managed. We remember that at the time ;of the New Zealand Exhibition held in Christchurch, when it was known that a Government tourist office was to form part of the undertaking, we urged the importance of allowing tickets to be sold in tbe building so as to secure the prospective passenger as soon as his interest had been aroused, but nothing was done. We ought, no doubt, to feel gratified that the reform has been adopted even at this late date, and we cheerfully congratulate Mr Mackenzie on the fact that it is to be associated with his tenure of office. Still, it is impossible to think without a sigh of the hundreds of thousands of pounds which have been spent on the Department in the pastj without an attempt to make it directly reproductive. Even now we still think it is unnecessary to continue the expense of running it a_ a separate Department, with costly offices in the principal towns. A tourist enquiry office at the leading railway stations, where routes could be mapped out and tickets purchased, would meet all requirements. The Railway Department could take charge of all traffic arrangements, as is done by railway companies in England and elsewhere, and the remaining work of the Tourist branch, such as the management of Rotorua —where far too much public money has been spent —could be handed over to the Lands Department. Meanwhile there seems actually to be something like friction between the Railway Department and th 9 Tourist Department, although their interests ought to be identical. The Railway Department, it appears, will not allow its railway tickets alone to be sold at the Tourist offices—they can only bo secured in conjunction wi£h Bteamer or coach tickets. This, it seems tons, is very absurd, but it is a matter of common notoriety that if it is at all possible to throttle the public convenience with red tape, some Government department will always be found ready to make the attempt.