OYEZ! OYEZ!! OYEZ!!!

Observer, Volume XLI, Issue 13, 27 November 1920, Page 3

OYEZ! OYEZ!! OYEZ!!!

N.Z.! N.Z.!! N.Z.!!.'.----iHE New Zealand Government statistician has returned to the Dominion with the dismal news, that outside New Zealand this Dominion is not known. Incidentally, it isn't very well known inside the Dominion, most people being too busily engaged making a crust and buying butter (a New Zealand product!) to travel much.

Mr. Malcolm Fraser, the said statistician, very naturally believes tiiat Britain and other countries don't get enough statistics, about us, but he goes further, and says that they don't get enough literature about us—which is a very different thing. Few New Zealanders are guilty of. reading British or Australian or South African or Canadian Year Books, or statistics, the majority of the human race having a profound regard for the geniuses who make them:, but little time to read them.

The farm labourer—who is the person we need most of all in New Zealand—wouldn't really care whether the printer knocked a "nought" or two off, or whether there were two or four empty houses in New Zealand. When the war was on we very proudly declared that the splendid valour of our men, their association with many peoples, their fine gentlemanly behaviour, and their high intelligence, were the "best advertisements New Zealand ever had."

Is it to be believed, that the fiftyodd millions of people in Great Britain and Ireland have forgotten the one million New Zealanders so soon? Mr. Fraser's very reasonable request that ; we advertised bet"ter will spur the 'Government to advertise. If the Government wants something written it will most probably dig a,,chief clerk out of the Government I 'service to write.it —reward his faithfulness—for there are no experts outside the Government service. • • • Incidentally, talking about advertising, the average New Zealander knows much about America and little about Britain. The American movie man has seen to that—industrially, socially, politically. The average old colonist originating in England, Scotland, or Ireland, knows less of either than the average New Zealander knows about, them or his own country—for old country people may have lived iite a circumscribed area all their lives. An Englishman may know two square miles of London without knowing England; a Scotsman may know a bit of Edinburgh without knowing Scotland or its statistics — and the Irishman may know "Phaynix Parruk" and its vicinity without tUe least knowledge of the Green Isle generally.

So you see, Mr. Fraser, it is not at all" Avonderful that the teeming millions of these countries (they teem less in Scotland and Ireland than in England), are not acquainted with the advantages of Pukekohe

or the quality of the soil on the Waimarino plains; the height of Mt. Cook, or the number of sheepskins sent from Canterbury in a year, seeing that at least eighty per cent, of Old Country people can't afford to know even their own country.

We feel lik* a continent in New Zealand, and it is a very good way to feel, but we are rather a long distance from anywhere, and we shall have to make a loud noise to induce the millions to sit up and take notice of us. Incidentally, we are at present able to sell every last ounce of anything we grow at market rates. The advantage of whooping up New Zealand by good writing.-good. pictures, good motion pictures, good pamphlets, good books, and good lectures, would be in getting other people to come here to grow more produce, break in more land, establish new industries.

If the Old Country is to be invaded by advertisers of New Zealand, will Mr. Fraser and the Government, for goodness' sake, see that the writing isn't dull, and that the man who writes the boost isn't obsessed with figures? Figures don't mean so much to an emigrant as a good photograph, and a page out of a Year Book is of less value than real live information wrapped up in a yarn. ■ • • We are growing steadily. Very likely the High Commissioner's Office IS dead as far as being an advertising agency is concerned. Young, vivid, ardent writers, and not octogenarian politicians, or civil servants, are wanted if the new advertising stunt is to be done. But you are not going to bring millions flocking to New Zealand by writing a better Year Book of limited circulation. • • ■ Hit 'em up with vivid literature, and pictures,, Malcolm! And even then, if 60,000 of the best New Zealanders didn't tell 'em where New Zealand is, how can you expect, say, two men from Sir James Allen's office to perform the miracle?