The Grey River Argus SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1948. PRIME MINISTER’S DEPARTMENT

Grey River Argus, 18 September 1948, Page 4

The Grey River Argus SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1948. PRIME MINISTER’S DEPARTMENT

Britain and America leading, every country able to do so has in the past decade increased greatly its expenditure and organisation for purposes of publicity. Americans now are laying out money generously in New Zealand upon scholarships and other educational ventures with that object in view. Australia and Canada also have been stepping up their New Zealand propaganda. Britain’s outlay, largely State financed, runs into millions yearly, not to mention the 8.8. C. Yet the National Party, contrary to its past professions of belief in advertising the country abroad, and making its attractions better known at home, has now made the National Film Unit and the Information Section the medium of an attack on the staffing and financing of the Prime Minister’s Department. Tourist traffic is growing at a rate vHiieh proves the utility of the Department’s work, whilst the public itself is in the position to judge of the value and the great potentialities of the Film Unit. They also arc able to assess the worthlessness of the charge that the radio service is misused by the Government. The object of the Opposition has, of course, been to make out that the Prime Minister’s Department has had the staff increased merely to serve the purpose of Labour Party propaganda, . although characteristically the Opposition also has suggested that (L balance sheet should be drawn up to show expenditure and receipts. It is obviously . impossible to show in' monetary figures the value of publicity. For instance, when migrants are attracted, their eventual value to the country cannot be tabulated immediately in £. s. d., and this also goes for tourists, investors, and industrial entrepreneurs. The propaganda charge has no other foundation than that, as the Government readily aiknowledges, some fourteen of a staff of two hundred and twenty-one making up all the personnel of various branches of the Prime Minister’s Department obtain, and provide information which is available for Government Members,' and is equally so for Opposition Members is they only ask for it. No doubt the National Party prefer to rely on a battery of almost all the newspapers to fire every day its propaganda at all and sundry. They have no relish for a Labour Government that keeps itself well-informed. That explains the attack on this Department, and the indiscriminate partisan criticism levelled. The staff they have exaggerated by over forty per cent. The public realises that much of the value of the Film Unit can only be gauged overseas. Whether or not it be deemed as propaganda, the publicity will be supported in the degree that the Prime Minister mqy extend it. Giving few financial details, other countries are augmenting their services of information and publicity very greatly, and there is scope for increasing the staff in this country. We hqye been constrained, through. her publicity, to regard America as the hub of the universe, and oth-| er Dominions are adopting corrective measures. A dominant place in this hemisphere is

sought by Australia, whereas we too have great potentialities. We can do with more people, more visitors, more capital, and more knowledge among the people of their own country. For past expenditure there has been good value, and better results will be obtainable if the effort is expanded.