The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1912. PARLIAMENTARY PICNICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 110, 25 September 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1912. PARLIAMENTARY PICNICS.

Parliamentary picnics arc not by any means /'modern institutions," anil the members of the two Houses of Legislature have hail many pleasant little jaunts about the country of late years in search of information and as graceful ornaments upon certain auspicious provincial occasions. We do not grudge them these holiday week-ends, for, as as a matter of fact, they are calculated [ to do a whole lot of good in the country by bringing representatives into more familiar touch with the requirements of districts with which they are totally unacquainted. It is a generally recognised thing that it is necessary for the members of successive Ministries to travel from end to end of the country in pursuit of knowledge, and what is sauce for the Government goose is surely sauce for the ordinary political gander. In this respect Wanganui has given us all a good lead. Last weeic the people of the river city issued a general invitation to the House to be its guests, and a large number of members availed themselves of the invitation, and were most hospitably entertained by the citizens from Saturday to Monday. There is every reason why Xew Plymouth should follow suit. The average southern member of Parliament regards Taranaki as a place where cows are brought to perfection on a diet of ironsand, judiciously leavened with petroleum. He pictures Mount Egmont as a bush-clad hillock, upon which a few thousand cattle peacefully browse, while its slopes are dotted with the smiling villages of Hawera and New Plymouth and Whangamomona, whose well-paved streets and lordly residences bask in a setting of semi-tropical verdure. It would not do the slightest harm if some attempt were made to dispel this illusion. We are a contented enough community, but are hardly as elaborately equipped with the common conveniences of civilisation as some of our political friends are pleased to imagine. There is, however, no lack of public spirit in the district, and we are quite sure that there would be no protest from the ratepayers if the Borough Council, with the co-operation of other local bodies, were to issue a general invitation to the members of Parliament to become our guests for a week-end. There should be no difficulty in securing private accommodation for our visitors, for we are nothing if not hospitable, and we are quite certain that there are plenty of our citizens who would place their motor-cars and carriages and launches at the disposal of any organising committee to enable the visitors to journey to the Mountain House and the Mokau and other points of interest in the immediate neighborhood. Their entertainment would be easy, and the educative possibilities of this gilded pill would be immense. Of course, to a certain extent, it would be a casting of bread upon the waters, but this particular aspect of the invitation need not be

emphasised. We should want our guests to inspect the gardens and-the oil wells and the ironsand works, and to muddy their immaculate boots'upon some of the 'back-block roads, but we could safely assure them that none of them shall he lost in the wilderness, and that they shall all be returned to their Parliamentary duties sound in wind and limb, but with a much more extended knowledge of the potentialities of the district. The arrangement of such a trip only requires a little initiative, and we feel certain that the citizens would heartily respond to any effort that the Mayor and City Fathers might make to organise a '' Taranaki Week-end " on the lines we have suggested.