GOVT. PUBLICITY

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 June 1928, Page 5

GOVT. PUBLICITY

SOUTH ISLAND’S SHARE

(Special to "Star.")

WELLINGTON, June 25.

An analysis of the last half-dozen jobs of the Government Publicity Office, states Mr. R. W. Fenton, Officer-in-Charge, reveals that the South Island has received slightly more space than that devoted to the North. Answering complaints that the North Island is receiving preferential treatment in the matter of official publicity, Mr. Fenton announced that the working principle of his Department was that the total available space in publications should be divided in the ratio of North Island 45 per cent, South Island 55 per cent. This ratio had been fairly accurately preserved in the publications of the last six months. “The Paradise of the Pacific,” the All Blacks’ Souvenir despatched to South Africa, the two albums of photographs presented to the All Blacks and the New South Wales footballers, and the N.Z. Pocket Annual, and it is being preserved in the volume of New Zealand, illustrated entirely in colour, on which the Department is now engaged. Concerning the representations of the Greymouth Chamber of Commerce that the West Coast has not received attention from the Department, Mr. Fenton points out that there are three photographs dealing with West Coast subjects out of a total of twenty in “The Paradise of the Pacific.” These include the Fern Arch and the Franz Josef. It is not the policy of the Department, as yet ,to issue publications on special districts unless they have special attractions, as the Cold Lakes region, or the deep-sea fishing areas possess. Nor is it customary to include photographs of towns. There is only one publication in which this has been done (“Brighter Britain”).