DUKE OF YORK

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIV, 18 December 1926, Page 10

DUKE OF YORK

I TO BE CLOTHED IN N.Z. GOODS. A WELLINGTON. PROPOSAL. [OCT OWN CORRESPONDENT] WELLINGTON, December 16 No doubt many curious experiences will befall the Duke of York during his impending visit to New Zealand. That was the experience of the Prince of Wales when he was here a few years ago, and the heir to the throne adapted himself so readily and so cheerfully to the humor and the customs of the country that nothing less will be expected of his brother. The members oi the Wellington Industrial Association, at any rate, are counting on the Duke not only accepting their hospitality with ready appreciation, but also assisting them, as a matter of course, in advertising their manufactured goods. If they have their way His Royal Highness will make a public appearance in Wellington during his visit clad entirely in goods manufactured within the Dominion. Some doubts were expressed at Tuesday’s meeting of the Association as to the possibility of procuring braces and studs of New Zealand manufacture, but the optimistic president Was confident that such trifling details would be easily arranged. It would be a fine advertisement for the Dominion, he said, to see His Highness in Dominion clothes. Another ardent advertiser urged, or seemed to urge, that every single stitch of the Duke’s apparel should bear the trade mark of New Zealand enterprise. BEYOND A JOKE. The only doubting heart at the meeting, so far as can be gathered from the newspaper reports of the proceedings, was that of a timid member who readily admitted the value of the advertisement, but was not quite sure of its good taste. “Yes it will be good taste all right,’’ this diffident person was assured by the confident chairman, “and they’ll be good clothes, too, for as you all know, gentlemen, we can manufacture things here as well as they, can in any other part of the world.” The only public . protest that has been raised against this proposed outrage upon all the proprieties figures in the Dominion’s comic cuts this morning. Here the Duke is predicted throwing aside English’ volumes that he may read only New Zealand literature; being refused bananas at table because they are not New Zealand fruit; eschewing picture shows except those screening New Zealand subjects; declining to ride in anything but a New Zealand made car; smoking, with dire results, a New Zealand manufactured cigar, and, finally, appearing in the picturesque, though somewhat scanty, costume of the primitive Maori. Perhaps humor is the best weapon by which such a preposterous proposal as that of the Industrial Association can be squashed, but the authorities should make quite sure the royal visitor will not be confronted by an invitation to become a showman, j