H.—3o

1901. NEW ZEALAND.

VOTE OF £260 FOR PURCHASE OF 10,000 COPIES OF THE "REVIEW OF REVIEWS FOR AUSTRALASIA" FOR JANUARY, 1901, CONTAINING A SPECIAL ARTICLE ON NEW ZEALAND (CORRESPONDENCE WITH REFERENCE TO THE).

Laid upon the Table of the House of Representatives by Leave.

167-9, Queen Street, Melbourne, 30th September, 1901. The Bevieiv of Reviews for Australasia and Me. Seddon. (To the Editor.) Sib,— I have not yet seen the text of the debate in your House of Eepresentatives on the arrangements Mr. Seddon made with the Review of Reviews for Australasia as to taking for distribution a certain number of copies of the issue which contains an article on " New Zealand at the Beginning of the Century " ; but I gather by the cablegrams from England that the latest version of the story is that Mr. Seddon paid the Revieio of Reviews for Australasia a sum of money for an article which is practically a puff for himself. I cannot imagine that any sane New-Zealander will believe this story, whatever may be the case in England. The article was one of a series designed to give a picture of each of the great Australasian settlements at the beginning of the new century in turn, and the whole series, it was hoped, would, when completed, form a book of permanent interest and value. New Zealand came third on the list. As there was very considerable expense attached to the many illustrations which accompanied the article, the New Zealand Government was asked to take a certain number of copies for distribution in England and elsewhere, on the ground that the article would be of public service to New Zealand. Mr. Seddon expressed no wish whatever as to the character of the article, and never saw a line of it till it was published. My duty was to secure the best possible writer for the article, and to give him an absolutely free hand. I invited the Rev. Joseph Berry, of Adelaide—-a writer of mark, who lived for many years in New Zealand, and is universally respected —to undertake the article, and it appeared exactly as he wrote it. There could not be a more honest bit of literary work. No one could read it without seeing that it is a perfectly independent, though friendly, study of the resources and prospects of New Zealand. It certainly includes no special eulogy of Mr. Seddon. His name, in fact, except in the titles to the photographs, occurs only three times in the article. And nothing could be more straightforward, businesslike, and honourable than the manner in which Mr. Seddon carried through this transaction with the Review of Reviews for Australasia. He plainly wanted to serve his colony, not himself. And the article is not written in superlatives. It is a sober and absolutely reliable account of the resources and prospects of one of the richest and most flourishing provinces of the British Empire. Yours, &c, W. H. PITCHETT.

Deae Sib,— 167-9, Queen Street, Melbourne, 28th June, 1901. Several very complimentary notices of the article entitled " New Zealand at the Beginning of the Century," which appeared in the Review of Reviews for Australasia for January, have been published in the English papers. Seeing these, the managing director of the English Review of Reviews has written to us suggesting that no better service to New Zealand could be rendered than the publication of the Bey. Joseph Berry's article in the English Review. His proposal is that we forward him the plates we used, and he will print a special supplement on art paper, and insert one in every copy of the Review of Reviews circulated throughout Great Britain, Canada, India, South Africa, and other parts of the Empire. This would mean a circulation of some 100,000 copies of the article in question. We are advised that the cost of printing and inserting such a supplement as described would be £300.