TURNING OF THE TIDE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27210, 13 October 1949, Page 6

TURNING OF THE TIDE

In Favour Of South Island Power Resources Attracting Business Staff Reporter QUEENSTOWN. Oct. 12. “We cannot—dare not—relax in our efforts. The tide is slowly turning in favour of the South Island, and we must not slacken in our efforts to make the great natural resources and advantages of the south known far and wide,” said the Mayor of Christchurch, Mr E. H. Andrews, in his presidential address at the opening of the South Island Local Bodies’ Association conference in Queenstown this morning. Progress was not as rapid as the association could wish, Mr Andrews said, but quite a measure of advance, which demonstrated the value of the association, had been made. Every satisfied settler, tourist, business man and visitor would be a valuable advertisement for the island.

Traversing the accomplishments of the year, ’the. president said that for the first time in the history of the Dominion the increase in the industrial population of Christchurch was greater than that of Auckland, as was the increase in new industrial units. The Minister of Works had said publicly that suchi development was inevitable on the grounds of power availability and other factors. If that was so, the allocation of houses should be on a higher scale than one-third of the Dominion’s total. Actually, it was less. The situation would become absurd and disastrous to the South Island if such a state of affairs continued.

On the subject of tourist traffic, Mr Andrews said that at previous conferences they had been led to believe that tourists would be given full information about the South Island by tourist offices in the North Island. Unfortunately, there were still instances of discrimination against the South Mr Andrews cited several instances that had come under the notice of the Christchurch City Council. Mr Andrews said he had heard one or two persons prophesy that the association was going to die. “It is not going to die,” he declared, “ but is going to become more vivacious and full of life every year we meet.” Mr Andrews said that sometimes a disgruntled person found fault with the association, but, generally speaking, the association was a happy family working for the advancement of the South Island. The association was nonpolitical, and had a membership representative of practically the whole of the South Island local bodies.