The Evening Star TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1923. ADVERTISING AT WEMBLEY

Evening Star, Issue 18504, 11 December 1923, Page 4

The Evening Star TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1923. ADVERTISING AT WEMBLEY

At yesterday’s conference between the Otago Committee of the Empire Exhibition to be held at Wembley Park and the two New Zealand Commissioners to that Exhibition, one of the points emphasised was that of advertising. The Government is looking after the interests of the dominion as a whole in this regard,.and with two Commissioners so closely identified with Otago as Messrs A, F. Roberts and W. E. C. Reid it is safe to assume that this part of New Zealand will receive full justice. But the Government, it appears, is also . encouraging the different provinces to make individual efforts on their own behalf in the propaganda line, and already the North Island has bestirred itself. All that is required is that a wellbalanced impression of this country shall be conveyed. Hitherto this has not always been the case when the claims of New Zealand have been urged abroad. What the tendency has been was hinted at by Mr Steel when ho suggested that the Commissioners should educate Cook's Tourist Agency in London to a broader conception of Now Zealand than that which would, regard anything south of the 39th degree of latitude as merely a background for the city of Auckland and its not-far-dislant wonderland, Rotorua. The Government Tourist Department itself has not been guiltless in fostering the same idea, but it will not do for Otago merely to look on and see whether on this occasion the picture to be presented is in correct perspective. Our own particular appeal need not approach stridency, but it must bo prominent—a leading part “ coming through ” the general harmony. For there is our own Exhibition to follow, and not only the attention of the tourist must be focused on Dunedin, but that of the manufacturer also. We need exhibits as well as overseas visitors to come and see them. And one of the ways in which to get exhibits is to provoke the interest of Home manufacturers by demonstrating what we ourselves can do in these far-distant workshops of ours. What Mr Reid said yesterday on this matter contained a hint that Christchurch is likely to overshadow Dunedin so far as Wembley Park exhibits are concerned. This is a matter which our local Manufacturers’ Association might well investigate. One of the most knotty points raised yesterday was that of immigration. Mr W. C. Burt said he thought we were getting the wrong class of immigrant. A recent issue of a London weekly paper which supports the Labor cause stated that ” the dominions, for all the professions of their Prime Ministers in London, show an immense caution about their immigrants.” The remarks of both Mr Burt and Mr James Begg corroborate that view, though evidently the latter gentleman gives it only qualified support, if any. He thought we should not draw the line too tightly. It is on ascertained fact that more than one local firm, having imported British artisans to be employed in the initiation of certain processes not hitherto familiar here, have been disappointed with the results. Big-scale methods of production in Britain have evolved the rigid specialist among the wage-earners. A man may be an expert in his own particular branch, but a mere tyro in the allied branches involved in the turning out of the product. As the scale of local production is relatively small, it needs the all-round man, and the imported specialists have not proved adaptable. Mr Begg suggests that they should have their training extended on their arrival in New Zealand; but this appears to us rather an uneconomical way of putting things straight, particularly when there is considerable anxiety in Britain over that country’s loss of picked men, presumably the specialists to whom Mr Begg referred. Very recently Mr Arthur Henderson declared that ” while emigration under proper safeguards is a desirable thing wo must beware of crippling ourselves by the loss of a mass of our most skilled workers.” Any population movement which does not benefit the one country to a far greater extent than it weakens the other ought to be arrested. If we emcourage it to continue wo are only strengthening the position of the Nov Zealand Labor Party in its opposition to any attempt to transfer part of Britain’s unemployment problem on to this country by organised migration. It is understood that next year representatives of British and dominion Labor arc to meet in conference, and it is possible that more light, leading perhaps to a mutually beneficial system, may bo the result.