New Zealand as a Tourist Resort.

Manawatu Herald, 10 September 1904, Page 2

New Zealand as a Tourist Resort.

HOW THE YANKEES SEE US. (By Edmund Mitchell.) - St. Louis. —Trade between America and Australia is seriously restricted by the operation of tariff laws, and_ the want of a reciprocity treaty. This is the reason advanced by the Australian Commonwealth, limiting its view with some shortsightedness to the merely American aspect of the great World’s Fair, for its absence from what is in reality an international clearing-house of ideas and record of industrial achievement. The Government of New Zealand, England’s island colony in the Southern seas, has been partly influenced by the same feeling of doubtful commercial benefits, New Zealand, however, has not wholly abstained. America would have welcomed at the World’s Fair an illustrative showing of her great wool products, her rich agricultural, mineral, and timber resources, her profitable dairying and chilled meat exporting industries, her woollen and other important manufacturing enterprises. But she has concentrated her efforts on displaying national assets that stand quite aloof from vexing., tariffs. J In the first place, New Zealand is happy in the possession of some of the most magnificent scenery in the world —of field and mountain, of forest and valley, of lake and river, of sprouting geysers, boiling pools, and vast craters, the lava crest of which is still sullenly aglow. Secondly, she numbers among her population some [50,000 Maoris, tfiq

noblest race of savages in the world from the points of view at once of physique, brave and geimrons character, intellect, and power to raise themselves to the white, man’s level, Thirdly, New Zealand, with her deer forests and her well-stocked trout rivers, offers threat attractions to the lover of quiet sport’ And to those three features she gives prominence at St. Louis. Incidentally we get a feuglimpses into her natural resources, hut scenery, and the charms of travel amidst such scenery, strike the dominating note of her exhibits. The subject is one that lends itself to artistic treatment, and there are no more beautiful courts in the Palaces of Agriculture and Forestry than those beneath the sign-scroll, “ New Zealand,” That this is the land of thorough going democracy—compulsory arbitration, woman’s suffrage, old age pensions, and so on—is strikingly illustrated by the fact that New Zealand has a special Government Department of Tourist and Health Resorts, with a Minister of Cabinet rank to administer its affairs. Travellers with woeful memories of extortion in other parts of the world will welcome an innovation that is specially designed for their comfort and protection. It is this Department that has brought over the New Zealand exhibits to the World’s Fair. In the pavilion within the Palace of Agriculture there is a great assemblage of large-sized photographs, these in themselves works of artistic merit. Of the scenes depicted, no description need be attempted. They most fully bear out the claim that in New Zealand the hand of nature has accomplished some of its most lovely and stupendous effects. Notable among the views is one of a geyser that spouts its boiling stream 1500 feet into the air. Oil paintings and water colors loaned from New Zealand collections, depicting both scenery and Maori types, also well repay inspection. Some cases of wool lleeces, bales of hemp fiber, samples of various grains, and panels of polished timbers, are also on show, just to remind the visitor that in this land of God’s beauty there is God’s plenty as well. But the court in Forestry Building is even more attractive still. Study the magnificent antlered heads of deer, and remember that they are the greatly improved progeny of stock imported from the Scottish moors. Look at the huge twenty-pounder trout, and reflect that the New Zealand rivers were stocked partly from Europe and partly from America. These facts form markers in human progress, for neither result was achieved without study, skill, care, and costly experiment. (To be continued.)