Mount Cook Cableway

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31864, 17 December 1968, Page 20

Mount Cook Cableway

Sir, —I am afraid “A Park Dweller” has completely misunderstood my argument against the Mount Cook cableway and the other so-called tourist amenities planned for our national parks. An increase in tourist interest in New Zealand is inevitable, and 1 agree that we might as well benefit financially. But surely our main tourist attraction is the undisturbed, natural scenery, and in a world of ever-increasing “development” this is rapidly becoming a very rare asset. So why ruin Such a valuable attraction by the establishment of manmade creations? Tourist facilities should be situated outside the national park boundaries. Unfortunately it seems our great national park heritage story is as thin as some of our other fine stories. As soon as a “quick dollar” can be made, the old cries, "Protect and preserve our national parks,” are quickly forgotten. —Yours, etc., C. R. PATTERSON. December 15, 1968. [This correspondence is now closed.—Ed.. “The Press.”], Release Of Prisoners Sir, —“M.Mc.” and “Bethune” miss the point made by Mr Sweet that, “had there been a genuine desire to mark the day in this area, it should surely have been by iat least some token penal reI form." Prisoners have no (“right” to premature release, (and claiming that the latter

shows “the true meaning and real significance of the Declaration of Human Rights” is absurd. This cheap stunt, costing nothing, solves prisoners' fundamental problems not at all, and leaves unreleased prisoners unbeneflted. Genuine reform, on the other band, of remand prison conditions would be costly. Clouding the issue with sentimentality only subverts prisoners’ real interests. The hidden face of sentimentality is cruelty—in this context, cruel indifference. The Justice Department is in no position to talk of human rights when so much reform is urgently needed.—Yours, etc., OBSERVER. December 15, 1968.