Visitors from America.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18423, 2 July 1925, Page 8

Visitors from America.

YVe are glad that a start has been made with the preparations for welcoming the two thousand officers and men of tho American Fleet who are now on their way to Lytlelton. In its larger aspects the visit of the Fleet to Australia and Xcw Zealand has an importance that it would be difficult to exaggerate. Though some high-pitched nonsense has been written lately about "the ocean of destiny," it is a fact that the Pacitic was never so important before internationally, and that a good understanding between the two groups of English-speaking people to the north and south of it will have much to do with the history of the world during the next hundred That, however, is an aspect of the cruise that has already been full}' emphasised. What particularly concerns the Dominion for the next five or six weeks is tho entertainment of the visitors when they arrive, and it. is just as well to realise that August 11th is not such a remote date thai-we can afford to be. too leisurely in our preparations. Our desire is iirst of all to be hospitable for hospitality's sake. "We want to be able to make every man feel at home the moment he walks ashore;— ahdj'if the difference may be stressed, jnt home with friends. But we want to be, hospitable also for prudence'

sake—because the Fleet carries "frventy- " five thousand agents to advertise '• Australia and Xew Zealand in "' America," and it is imporiant that wo should get the right kind of advertisement. How much more advertisement the Dominion needs to put it into the heads of Americans, New Zealanriers discover "when they travel: if it occasionally happens that they meet Americans who know that New Zealand is distinct from Australia, it does not happen once in twenty times that anything more particular than that is known, and especially that our social and political standards are understood, or known indeed to exist. It is one of the astonishing facts of contemporary history that there should be a hundred million people three weeks'sail from us, speaking our own language, and living generally according to our own traditions, and yet almost completely unaware of us. 1i will be 'largely our own fault if they are still unaware of us after (he Fleet returns.