DEER HEAD

Southland Times, Issue 25307, 10 June 1935, Page 8

DEER HEAD

FOR BISLEY PAVILION. REPLY TO MINISTER. “It is a matter for regret that the Minister of Internal Affairs (Sir Alexander Young) was not in Wellington where he could have had access to the files when he replied to the criticism of his department concerning its refusal to bear the shipping charges on the red deer head for Bisley,” was the comment of the president of the New Zealand Rifle Association (Dr A. F. Ritchie Crawford) on the Press Association message sent from Christchurch on Friday night. “Apparently the Minister made his reply over the telephone and this may account for the inaccuracies which appear. “I wish to emphasize that in the first place the request for a suitable red deer head for the pavilion at Bisley was made to the New Zealand National Rifle Association by the Department of Internal Affairs which had received a communication from the High Commissioner for New Zealand stating that Sir Lionel Fletcher wished to have a good trophy from New Zealand for the pavilion. Recognizing that Bisley is the Mecca for riflemen within the Empire, the New Zealand Rifle Association decided to comply with the request of the department, and through the generosity of a Wanaka sportsman a really good thirteen-pointer Otago head was secured. In view of the representations made by the Department of Internal Affairs in the matter I do not think that the request made by the Rifle Association for assistance in shipping the head to England was at all unreasonable.

“Furthermore I may mention that since the Government found it necessary to retrench, the Rifle Association lost its annual grant of £lOOO and the free railway warrants to riflemen attending the Trentham meeting. This has considerably affected the funds of the association and is another reason why the request to the department regarding the head was not unreasonable.

“The question of the deer menace is not one with which the National Rifle Association is concerned,” concluded the president. “But speaking candidly I consider the statement in the Undersecretary’s letter that the department could not be a party to encouraging anyone to visit New Zealand for stalking seems extraordinary when _ the Tourist Department, by advertising propaganda in England, strives to bring sportsmen to the Dominion.”