THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1978. Progress League’s passing

Press, 8 November 1978, Page 24

THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1978. Progress League’s passing

Many people in Canterbury are of the opinion that the province’s interests need to be promoted as vigorously today as ever they were promoted in the past. It might seem, therefore, an unusual time for the Canterbury Progress League to go out of existence. The league was founded 60 years ago to advance Canterbury at a time when, the league's founders maintained, the province was not getting fair treatment from the Government of the day.

The tasks the league has performed for six decades will not, of course, be neglected in the future The league is not so much winding up completely as passing on its honourable tradition of publicising Canterbury's attractions, and of agitating on Canterbury’s behalf to other groups and organisations. Most of its promotional activities will become the responsibility of the new organisation which will be formed by a merger of the Progress League and the more recently founded Convention Bureau.

A major task of this new organisation will be to promote the Christchurch Town Hall as a venue for conventions. The success of this promotion will ensure, indirectly, the achievement of man.' of the aims which the Progress League has long sought. But promoting Christchurch as a convention centre should not be allowed to become the new organisation s sole duty. It must also promote the attractions of Christchurch and Canterbury to groups or individuals with no interest in holding or attending a convention here. Beyond this again, if the new body

is to be faithful to the traditions of the Progress League, it will not confine its activities to advertising the city and province. It will not shrink from what the Progress League did so effectively in its hey-day—drawing the needs of the city and province to the attention of the Government. Many of the political tasks which the league once discharged have been taken from its shoulders in recent years as local bodies have become more active and have joined together into groupings whose voices carry weight in Wellington. But there will always be some issues and some causes which the local bodies will hesitate to take up. Any new organisation worth its salt will not hesitate to step into the breach.

The vigorous promotion of Canterbury will inevitably, at times, be unpalatable to the Government, whichever party is in power. Some people appear to want the new organisation to refrain from political lobbying in favour of straight public relations efforts. This was at least one of the rocks on which earlier attempts to effect a merger between the Progress League and the Convention Bureau foundered. But the league itself managed to chart a course through the shoals of charges that it was politically biased without becomingineffective as an advocate of Canterbury’s interests. The new organisation should aim to do the same. Its efforts can be politically effective without its ever becoming partisan to an unacceptable extent. This much at least the new organisation owes to its predecessor of 60 years standing.