A MATTER OF URGENCY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18850, 1 May 1923, Page 2

A MATTER OF URGENCY.

CRITICISMS OF A NEW ZEALANDER

(Facfti Otjb Own V LONDON, March 17.

On many occasions covering, a' considerable period I have referred in- my mailletters to the urgent need of up-to-date pictures of New Zealand and its scenery to be placed at the disposal of the High Commissioner’s Office here. So far, however, to no effect, and when lantern lectures are. given in various parts of the country slides of any age up to 20 years seem to be the only things available. Mr Arthur Harper, a recent arrival from Wellington, to-day takes up the matter. He considers that there is a very grave lack of proper advertisement of New Zealand’s scenic . attractions, chiefly because the High Conjmiesioner’s Office is not kept supplied with up-to-date information. This, he says, is especially noticeable in the antiquated and out-of-date lantern slides at that office., and it appears to him that moving pictures of the New Zealand Alps and other scenic attractions should be available for use' generally throughout this country. Mr Harper has been concerned in scientific research at tire Imperial Institute, and in the course of his visits there he was asked to look at the doininion’a exhibit in the permanent exhibition section. The exhibits have, he was , told, been oollecjed at great trouble by /the' Institute authorities,and repeated requests to the New Zealand Government for more up-to-date exhibits have been ignored. On© thing "struck him very forcibly at the Imperial' Institute—the New Zealand court has .four photographs., bn’ Dunedin, Wellington, Christchurch, and Auckland. • All •of these must have been taken many years ago, and. are ridiculously primitive. “Far better,’’ said Mr Harper to me, “to have none at all than these out-of-date pictures." He suggests that if the Government will not supply some of the many fine panoramic views of these towns it would pay the citizens themselves to do so.”

The few pictures of the Southern Alps in the possession of the Imperial Institute are misnamed, and the directors have asked Mi’ Harper to give them their proper descriptions.