ADVERTISING NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18567, 27 November 1923, Page 6

ADVERTISING NEW ZEALAND.

Evidence of neglect to make New Zealand's attractions widely known is regrettably plentiful. Mr. Charles Rhodes, returning from his worldtour, has made mention of this neglect, and the letter of Mr. Henry Hayward in this issue calls attention again to it. There is serious fault somewhere. If New Zealand is literally not on the map, the cartographers are not primarily to blame. Were its excellence adequately known they would not deem it unworthy of inclusion, however diminutive and distant it might be. Samuel Johnson's excuse for mistakenly describing, in his dictionary, " pastern " as " the knee of a horse " might be pleaded by them too ; and for their " pure ignorance" they have more justification than had the famous lexicographer for his. Others are to blamethose in responsible positions who have failed to use or to make opportunities to advertise New Zealand. A country, that is one of the most healthy, wealthy, beautiful and free in all the world is still in need of population, and there are no very definite signs that anybody in authority is particularly bestirring himself to mend matters. True, there is something in view for the Empire Exhibition next year, and

Mr. Massey expresses his opinion to the Exhibition authoritiesthat New Zealand will have a display worthy of its importance. It reads like a statement by the Delphic oracle, and leaves us in New Zealand" wondering whether it means any better display than one worthy of New Zealand's importance as those authorities may estimate it. That is no guarantee of excellence necessarily. Efforts, even at this hour, should be redoubled to make that exhibit a powerful agency to attract suitable immigrants. Mr. Massey's statement to the Morning Post concerning New Zealand's scope for immigrants if! similarly lacking in definiteness. He undermines his description of the Dominion's attractions by diffidence about the area available for settlement. That area is not limited by the acreage of Crown lands now open for disposal by ballot or otherwise. There is a vast possibility of closer settlement than yet obtains, and greater opportunity for agricultural development than Mr. Massey's description implies. Effeclive advertising of New Zealand will improve considerably on his state-! ment, however well-intentioned it may have been, and be an integral part of a more vigorous immigration j policy than has had vogue of late. The need for a well organised and sustained publicity is clamant. It will not be met by merely broadcasting the Dominion's attractiveness for tourists. Even a postcard " drive " depicting beautiful bcenery and beautiful Maori maidenhood seems rather like playing with an urgent and serious need. Welcome as pleasure-seeking tourists always will be, it is an influx of industrious settlers that the Dominion requires. Its prosperity defends fundamentally upon that. Should the suggestion of an Auckland conference on the matter of advertising New Zealand be put into effect, those arranging it will do well to include in its personnel many beside commercial men, and to make provision in its agenda for practical discussion of immigration as well as of methods of letting the world know what New Zealand is and where it happens to be.