TOURIST INTERESTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22354, 30 August 1934, Page 5

TOURIST INTERESTS

THE RECENT CONFERENCE MAYOR OF ROTORUA’S CRITICISM. (Peb Dnited Press Association. > ROTORUA, August 29. In an interview to-day regarding the proposals made, at the recent Tourist Conference at Wellington to place the Tourist Department under the control of a board, the Mayor of Rotorua (Mr J. T. Jackson) said: “I am somewhat perturbed at the fact that a proposal of such a farreaching • nature and involving such vital questions of policy with respect to the whole tourist business should have been dealt with in such a casual manner. So far as I am aware any organisations with which I have been able to get in touch whose representatives were present at the conference had no prior knowledge that such vital questions of policy were coming before the conference, and therefore the delegates representing such organisations were not in a position either to speak or vote on the question with the authority of the organisations they represented. On the other hand, from the report of the Rotorua delegates conveyed to me, it is apparent that some of' the delegates present were fully conversant with the proposals. “I feel that all the parties interested should have been made conversant with the subject to be discussed in order that their representatives could vote with full support and authority of the organisations they represented,' and that the proportion of representation at such a conference should have been carefully scrutinised in order to ensure that no particular interest had an undue , representation. Only by following such a procedure as this could a truly representative decision be arrived at which would command the respect and consideration of those who have the tourist interest at heart from a national point of view. Much has been said of commercial and business methods being applied to the Tourist Department, but the procedure adopted at the conference of asking delegates to vote on vital matters on purely verbal representations is tantamount to asking a man to invest his money in a company without showing him the complete prospectus—scarcely a business like start for any venture.” At Lupset, near Wakefield, Yorkshire, there was a disused wooden mill. Auctioneers had laboured strenuously, describing its desirable points, but it was no use; the place stood empty ami began to fall into decay. Then, suddenly, someone had a happy idea. A new church was needed badly, but the cost —well, why not use the materia] ready at hand in the old mill? And so the now church is to be built of the bricks of the disused woollen factory. Lord Allendale laid the foundation stone.