“SHAKY ISLANDS”

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 2 September 1932, Page 9

“SHAKY ISLANDS”

DAMAGE TO NEW ZEALAND. REPORTS OF EARTHQUAKES. “Something ought to be done about correcting the prevalent impression in Australia that New' Zealand is a land of constant earthquakes. People think that every New Zealand {cablegram about an earthquake has been censored here and the facts about the number of people killed hidden. The Australian Press is always teaming us the Shivery Isles, the Ricketty Isles, c.r the Shaky Isles.” Those were some of the remarks made by Mr. S. G. Holland, manager of the New Zealand hockey team that toured Australa, on his return to Christchurch. Mr. Holland claimed that inestimable harm was being done to Now Zealand *by the reports. As an illustration of his point, Mr Holland showed a reporter a clipping from the “Crookweli Gazette,’’ a New' South "Wales country paper. It dealt with the arrival of the New Zealand hockey team under the. following headings: “Enzeds Invade Crookwell. Hockey Reps. from the Ricketty Isles.”

“That is onlv one example,” said Mr. Holland. “We got it in the Press everywhere we wont, and people spoke to us about it. I spoke over the air on a number of occasions, and was introduced as tlie manager of the hockey team from the Shaking IsTes.

“A little while ago a cablegram was received in Australia about an earthquake 140 miles from Wellington—somewhere in the tsea. An Australian friend, on reading it, said to me, ‘That’s censored, I’ll bet. I wonder how manv were killed.’ That’s the sort of thing you have to put up with. “New Zealand tourists in Australia are looked upon as lucky people—lucky to escape the earthquakes in Nev' Zealand and their chance of 1 icing killed. Dozeys of people have told me that they wouldn’t come to New Zealand because of the earthquakes. “When we have shakes here that are only technical ones after all, with the centre of disturbance) thousands of miles away, I don’t think the ?e----norts should be cabled abroad, for New Zealand is being done inestimable harm by their publication.”