VISITORS TO LONDON

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 12021, 26 December 1924, Page 9

VISITORS TO LONDON

HIGH COMMISSIONER’S OFFICE COURTEOUS AND , OBLIGING STAFF, Some Now Zealanders who, cn going to London, called a,t the office of the High Commissioner, have from time to time unfavourably criticised the manner in whioh the staff of that office attended visitors from the Dominion. During the period when tho Wembley Exhibition had England in its grip, and there was a larger number of Do minion visitors than usual, many complaints, coupled with adverse criticism about the Dominion court at the Exhibition, reached these shores. One Aucklander, however, who has just returned 1 from a visit to England, comes forward as a witness to the courteous manner in which he was received and the obliging way in which he was supplied with all the information for which he asked. This is Mr A. J. Hutchinson, secretary of the Auckland Rotary Club. “I would like to state that the attention given me, as an ordinary visitor to the Commissioner’s office, was remarkably good,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I was able to obtain better literature on New Zealand dairying, and other matters at the High Commissioner’s office, than I was able to get in the Dominion before I left. I wanted information about various produce returns, and 1 hadn’t the 1 slightest difficulty in receiving it. If you asked for information. about the railways or wanted to visit the Abbey or the. Museum, they made it as easy for you as if you. in Auckland, had wanted to go to the Domain. ’ ’ “No doubt,” added Mr Hutchinson, “there were some visitors who went along with the idea that they would be greeted like loig lost brothers and fussed about and! even kissed I' ’ For i-he mueh-criticised Dominion Court at Wembley, Mr Hutchinson had nothing but praioe. It was not a rodeo, nor a vaudeville chow, but a fir at-dial exhibition cf the products of this country—a display far in advance of that of other dominions. He added, however, that the photographs of New Zealand scenery could bo much improved. THE PRESS. Mr Hutohin-on paid a tribute to the New Zealand Ptess Tie said that he had written to an English paper, complaining of the little space given to colonial news. A few lines about Now Zealand appeared now and then, stuck away in some obeoure portion of the edition. But when Jackie Cocgan aivi vefl, he was given pages, and photographs—Jackie Coogan feeding the birds at the zoo, which any youngster might do any day of his life. Jackie Coogan doing this, that and the other thing—and getting one huge free advertisement for his troubles. “For mining and commercial news, there is nothing than can touch the English papers?’ concluded our informant, 1 'hut for. all-round news of the world, and! the' general getting-out of the papers, give me the New Zealand dailies every time.”