WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 290, 7 September 1928, Page 10

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

The task of science, says a speaker at the British Association Congress, is to provide ammunition for the business men.—Hitherto it seems to have been rattier busier providing ammunition for the military. Mr. Kellogg says his visit to Dublin was not a snub to Lon^Sn. —Merely a desire, perhaps, to avoid a city visited , by President Wilson. One thing'the Tongariro Park Board has not told us is how much per diem it is going to cost to stay in its palatial hostel, with its suits of rooms, etc. It is a nice thing, no doubt, to have another Hermitage, but a lot of people will hope the park will not be a place where the average man bops in for twenty-four hours r and bops out again before the bill, with its multitudinous columns has swallowed up hearth and home. As Mr. Amery reminded us, it is a good thing to cater for the wealthy tourist, provided we don't overlook the needs of our own people seeking a uot too costly holiday. Mr. Amery was of opinion that we ought, to set to and popularise our South Island mountains by providing hut accommodation, where plain people could go and enjoy the mountains :it small expense, and stay aud take their till.

It takes all sorts to make a world, and the money of people who want a jazz band and a billiard-room to help digest the scenery is just as good as anybody else's, and no doubt there is a good tiling to be made out of providing for them. But a reader points out one aspect of the park hostel project that deserves a little consideration. This is that the proposed hostel is apparently to be built in close proximity to the present huts at Whakapapa. As the only road in is the Whakapapa road this decision no doubt has been readied on the score of economy. The point is, are tlie huts to remain when tlie hostel is built, or will they vanish? Will everybody at Whakapapa have to pay hostel prices, or will it still be possible for those who wish to rough it io put up iu the huts?

Tlie late Mr. Holl, who lost his life iu the park last year and who visited and explored it more than pretty well anybody else of recent years, picked a site by the bush by the Taranaki stream as being the ideal base for mirk trips. It was handy for botlr Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu climbs, and had a tine outlook over the plains, whereas Whakapapa is handy only to Ruapehu, and the view compared with the other site is restricted. However, the Taranaki stream site is some miles away from the present end of the road, and money would have to be spent in extending the road to make it available as a tourist resort.

Our correspondent’s suggestion Is that if the big tourist hotel is to go up at ’Whakapapa it would be a good idea to shift the Whakapapa huts, or some of them, over to the Taranaki site. The frequenters of the fashionable tourist hostel won’t want the laudscape disfigured by the free aud easy hut parties camped out under the windows, and those who like the free-and-easy type of holiday won’t relish being overlooked as they boil the evening billy by the guests at the hostel, all dressed up for dinner—one doesn't picnic on Lambton Quay as a general thing. Possibly the hostel lessees may feel that iu view of their expenditure all the business that is to be done at the park should be done by them, but as the park is a national park for the entire population, it does seem desirable that the new venture should be so arranged that as good opportunities as at present remain for those who want the less expensive sort of holiday and like to leave frills and furbelows behind when they get out in the open. If the huts and the tourist hostel are jammed up too close together, will the result be satisfactory, particularly iu view of the great and growing army of motor campers who will swarm up to the park as the roads improve?

The American papers are discussing a report that Colonel Lindbergh had an income of slightly over £40,000 for the last six months of 1927. It is generally conceded that had he cashed iu on the offers he got after his singlehanded flight across the Atlantic, the gallant Lindbergh might have made five or ten times this modest amount. How the figure of £40.000 was arrived at is not clear; £5OOO came from the Orteig prize for the Paris flight, aud it is to be assumed that large sums were legitimately earned by the flying colonel through his excellently-written newspaper reports—there being no body of flying censors to complain that he was violating any “player-writer rule.”

According to one source of authentic information, commercial engagements that would have brought in over £60,000 were pressed upon Lindbergh by friends, in one city alone before be had eauglit up his sleep in Paris. The usually reliable “Springfield Republican” states that when he flew to Havana a few months ago as part of his goodwill tour of Central America, Lindbergh had been offered £20,000 if, on alighting from his plane on Cuban soil, he would say, “Give me ‘a ——,’ ” naming a well-known brand of cigarette. To which, with the simplicity that continues to characterise and to endear him to the American public, he replied. “I don’t smoke.” Fuller Gloom says: “You hardly know these days when you hear a woman telling about having nothing to wear, whether she is boasting or complaining.” TO ANY EXILED SCOT. Though far you be from Usk or Esk, If vou will open on your desk The map of Scotland, brindled With jade, and scrawled with looping burns, Then you, before the summer turns, May follow, fancy-kindled. A stubby pencil-point that leads To Ben and Loch by shaws and reeds, And where it stays you’ll linger in—no. I need not be your guide, You’ll find the place where you would bide And mark it with your finger. * » * You’ll need to take no actual stride— The crags will rise on either side. You will not need to clamber But yours will be the calling hills, And every little pool that spills From opal into amber. And yours will be the pearly days, The singing names of Bens and Bays, Until you close the covers: For names on maps are magic runes, And printer’s inked burns have tunes To cheer all Scottish lovers. 8.E.T., in the “Spectator.’*