A BACKWARD CITY?

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2000, 6 March 1914, Page 8

A BACKWARD CITY?

1 ADVERTISEMENT WANTED. NEGLECTED ATTRACTIONS. "I cannot make out why Wellington is, and always has been, so backward m advertising itself,"-said a well-known resident to a Dominion reporter. "Other places, some with little enough claim, too, .--shout gut their attractions from the housetops, and succeed in creating a spirit of what one may call selfish loyalty, but ouo that without doubt serves to mako the place known near and far. What Wellington wants is pushing along. Yes, 'and we havo plenty of attractions which we could push if wo could only rouse people to tako a live interest in the process. And what is it, after all? Merely telling tho world that in Wellington we havo pretty drives, fine beaches, a splendid harbour, magnificent panoramas, and tho healthiest climate in the world. Go to tho shipping offices and the tourist bureaux—come, we'll go—and see if we can get a pamphlet setting out the attractions of Wellington." With the Enthusiast, the writer visited(the nearest tourist bureau. "Have you any pamphlets describing the attractions of New Zealand towns?" asked the Enthusiast. _ "Oh. yes," s,aid the manager, "hero is Auckland and Gis borne and New Plymouth, Napier, and Christchurch." And he picked one off a number of little stacks of beautifully-printed pamphlets. 'Any about Wellington?" questioned tho enthusiast. , ' : - "No, , somehow or other Wellington Jias never gone in for that sort of thmg. lam asked for them, too, often enough, but no one seems to be interested enough to do anything in tho matter." "There.you are—what did I tell you? r*ot a thing about our own, city in our own city. How much less would you heaj about it out of tho place? Look —ftho booklet is published by the Chamber of Commerce, tho New Plymouth ono by the New, Plymouth Expansion and Tourist League, and the Napier ono by the Thirty Thousand Club. Is it not strange that Wellington has always sat quiet, and done nothing to push,itself along?" "Now, look here, I am a motorist," s/.id tho Enthusiast, "and I believe that no city has' benefited moro by the motor than Wellington. We have the best city drive in the whole of New Zealand. I know because I know them all, and becauseevery visitor says it is. That is the drive up to Brooklyn (from which height you get a glorious panoramic view of tho city, and harbour) down Happy Valley and Tound Island Bay, Houghton Bay, and Lyall Bay, through the tunnel to Seatoun and Worser Bay, then' skirting the waters of the entrance along to Fort Gordon, round the full extent of Evans Bay, into Oriental Bay, and so home. That is something of , a _drive, I. tell you, and, excepting the 'rise- to Brooklyn, it is all on tho flat. The Australian bowlers were taken everywhere by motor, and they all declared that the drivo I mentioned was easily tho best in their experience. One feature about it is that it is practically dustless, the roads aro good, and they follow the waters of cither Cook Strait or the harbour nearly the whole way round." And how do you propose tho boost should be worked?/' "How?" queried the Enthusiast. "Thero are dozens of ways.. One way would ho for the Carnival Committee to continue its good work by forming itself into !an.'Boost Club,' .on the lines of the Thirty Thousand Club..-in-Napier-and! the Million Club in ■ Sydney. ■ The ways come- with tho means, and tho means might easily be available if there was a settled authority to take the work in hand." -..