Trade Exhibition Decision Defended

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31384, 1 June 1967, Page 14

Trade Exhibition Decision Defended

Under the circumstances he agreed with the decision of the Government not to have a stand at the Canadian Expo 67, Mr H. J. Walker, M.P. for St Albans, said last evening when he arrived home from an overseas tour that took in the Canadian exhibition.

There were three sections —the major nations, the intermediate ones and the small nations that included the emerging independent countries —Mr Walker said. There was no doubt that the British pavilion was far out in front of the others, and no doubt that some of the displays by the new independent countries were almost pathetic.

What could New Zealand have done? It would have looked bad if any display had compared only with those of the small nations newly emerged, he said “rather than have a half-hearted exhibit, it was better to have none,” he said. New Zealand had not been forgotten, however, because there were advertising signs throughout the exhibition. Wherever he went and that included Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong as well as the United States Mr Walker found there was interest in New Zealand as a tourist attraction. This was particularly so in America where he found people who had visited Europe, Africa and the Pacific Islands and were now looking to New Zealand. While he was in America the tourist promotion mission

from New Zealand had been in San Francisco, he said, and he had found that it was well received. A film of New Zealand hotel accommodation had been greeted with surprise that such facilities existed.

On his way back to New Zealand Mr Walker spent four days in South Vietnam. The war bad lulled temporarily because he reported lunch with the New Zealand artillerymen and afternoon tea with the newly-arrived infantrymen. He found all the New Zealanders in good heart and keen to start a Rugby football team, perhaps because one of the warrant officers was S. F. (“Tiny”) Hill, a former All Black forward.