The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1929 PUBLICITY AT THE POLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 838, 5 December 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1929 PUBLICITY AT THE POLE

A HARD frost of criticism from Norway lias fallen on Commander Byrd whose serial story of his triumphant flight last week over the South Pole is still a feature of daily news all over the world. Here and there many people have thought that the narrative has been more than done to the quick, but perhaps that was to be expected from an American expedition with expert publicity service as an outstanding part of its excellent organisation and equipment. Though one touch of Barnum may not make the world kin, it rarely ever has failed to make the world grin. That fact, however, should not be permitted to depreciate the double conquest of Polar realms that stands to the high and enduring credit of Commander Byrd. Twice within a little more than three years he has succeeded with a new element in exploration. He has spanned the centre of both the Arctic and Antarctic circles, and proved conclusively that aviation can be made a quick and powerful aid to discovery. The manner of his expeditions may not appeal'to everybody, hut nobody justifiably could discount his thorough method. He gets or “has gotten” there—and back. It is to be regretted that Major Tryggve Gran, explorer and airman, who was a member of the late Captain Scott’s Expedition in 1910, should have criticised Commander Byrd with so much freezing bitterness before the full story of the aerial conquest of the South Pole had been told. There is every reason to anticipate that the narrative of achievement will he fortified and conclusively proved by the Expedition’s scientific and photographic records. In clear weather ranges of mountains are not likely to be mistaken for mere hummocks on a Polar plateau. Then, Commander Byrd, as an experienced explorer, must realise that where one plane has flo'ivn others will fly with the purpose of checking the discoveries of the pioneer airmen. So it see'ms to have been impulsive foolishness on the part of Major Gran to assert that “the terrible mountains which Byrd describes are a fantasy; that the land on the whole is a plain over which, except for clefts and ravines which must be crossed or got round, the trip might be accomplished on a motor-cycle.” If Polar exploration be nothing more dangerous than “broadsiding on the dirt speedway at Auckland’s new stadium, then all the romance of high adventure at the Poles or anywhere else will go as the last delusion of wistful men by a comfortable hearth. It is easier to understand Major Gran’s wrath about what he savagely has described as “a speculation in sensations,” but understanding the main reason for his bad temper does not condone the ferocity of his expressions. There was more than lack of kindness in the Norwegian explorer’s outburst that, “after the way in which the Americans are acting, ‘Polar explorer’ is no longer an honourable name. Only money, not scientific qualities nor year-long preparations are now required to become an explorer.” Such talk in tlie changed circumstances of Polar exploration sounds like petulant nonsense. Why should Commander Byrd or anybody else go back to laborious preparation and perilous foot-slogging, if and when the same journey can be accomplished fifty-six times quicker in an airplane? Exploring vertically also has its perils. Had the Eioyd Bennett crashed either on a new mountain range or upon a plain “over which the trip might be accomplished on a motor-cycle,” death would have been just as final as that which overtook gallant explorers on foot. The possibility of such an end to Commander Byrd’s daring flight was at least part of a speculation in sensations. The gallant airman took the risk and survived it. Why belittle his triumph? It may be unassailably true that the American Expedition lias not yet experienced one-tenth of the hardships and difficulties encountered by Amundsen and Scott, but he is entitled to full credit for all that he has achieved in a different and obviously a better way. And the American’s narrative has shown clearly that as his party winged over the South Pole and the inhospitable routes conquered by greater explorers, the members of it not only thought Of their intrepid predecessors, but carried flags with them to wave tribute to their imperishable memories. After all, perhaps Commander Byrd’s most embarrassing hardship has been the ardent blaze of publicity given to the Expedition by its resourceful recorder.

LOCAL INDUSTRIES

IN an exchange of principles, with the Auckland Manufacturers’ Association, the Auckland Chamber of Commerce has admitted the advisability of giving local industries sufficient tariff protection to assure them of a reasonable chance during their critical early years. The Auckland Chamber thus defines its attitude to the remarks of Mr. C. P. Agar, Dominion president of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, who at the recent annual conference rather rashly committed himself to the principle that the country could get along quite successfully if it confined itself to agricultural production and such industries as required n« great tariff: assistance. Since the interests of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Auckland Manufacturers’ Association overlap, and will continue to overlap, the former has adopted a very sensible, not to say diplomatic, attitude in refusing to endorse the whole terms of Mr. Agar’s reference. The truth is. of course, that all the manufacturers desire much less imposition of new and forbidding tariff's, so increasing costs to the consumers, than a general readjustment of the existing taxes in a manner that will make them beneficial to industry as well as simply productive of revenue. At present they are for the most part revenue-producing only. It is interesting to study what the Sydney “Bulletin” has to say on the subject in a recent article under the heading, “Cobden’s Ghost in Maoriland”: “As a foster mother of industries the (New Zealand) tariff is not a shining success. . . . Maoriland has natural resources that rival those of any Australian State. In such circumstances it oughtn’t to be necessary to reduce wages as an antidote to unemployment, and it wouldn’t be necessary to talk about unemployment at all if the islanders could curb their mania for importation and adjust their tariff's so as to give their own manufacturing industries a fighting chance.”

What New Zealand wants is a Government with sufficient vision to recognise the advantages of local industry, and sufficient courage to devise a concerted scheme to assist it. At present it is difficult to see where such a Government is to come from. Politicians are still in two minds on the question. They are torn between detached theories aijd the obvious realisation that a naturally well-endowed country cannot progress beyond a certain point as long as it is mainly dependent on commodities like wool and blitter, which are liable to severe fluctuations in the returns they bring in, while the price of the imported goods New Zealand purchases in return remains embarrassingly constant. No party has so far had the courage to make encouragement of manufactures a vital feature of its programme, but, nevertheless, the requisite impulse must eventually come, even if born of nothing save sheer necessity.