TOURIST DEPARTMENT.

Evening Star, Issue 12864, 13 July 1906, Page 3

TOURIST DEPARTMENT.

MELBOURNE AND SYDNEY AGENCIES. [SPECIAL TO THB STAB.] WTELUCNGTON, Jury 13. Mr T. E. Donne has just returned from ,i visit to Australia, the result of whsicb has been the establishment of New Zealand bnreaux at Sydney and Melbourne. Tbeee institutions are intended to be disseminators of information an this colonv's indTKitries—produce, climate, tourist resorts, everythins. The Melbourne agency was started first, under Mr H. J. Marion, an ex-New Zealander, in very fine premises in Cotrns street, on© of the most- conspicuous sites in the city. A large room has been ect aside for the use of the pubrk, and this has been made as attractive as the resources of New Zealand will allow. The walls a.re adorned with paintings, photographs, and maps, and on the tables lie albums of photographs and stercscopic apparatus. Nothing that will catch the eye and hold it lias been overlooked. The enterprise, however, does not stop indoors. The exterior is nicely finished in a scheme of decoration which cannot fail to arrest tie pnsser-by, and in the night there is a flashlight making " New Zealand Exhibition" glow in the daxknas? at intcrrals of five seconds. Though the office had been opened only a few days before Mr Donne left Melbourne, the tally of callers had gone above two hundred. On the veiy day that the portals were unswung a farmer entered and made inquiries about New Zealand. The replies so pleased hkn that he caught the next boat for this comrtrv. Similar offices hare been equipped "in Sydney at the corner of George and Wynyard streets, one of the finest stands that could be secured for the class of work This bureau is in the care of Mr E. H. Montgomery, who was recently the Department's agent at Auckland. Tic office wiH employ a flashlight, which wfll havo the damnation. of the first ever used in Svdnev.