THE MOUNTAIN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 203, 25 February 1914, Page 3

THE MOUNTAIN

nniES closf.i; every - day. Tlic Stratford Mountain Club chronicler is bei nif kept busy recording many previously unheard-of feats and attractions connected with the Stratford -lopes of till! mountain. In tint not too .distant future these facts will have to lie collated and published in illusI rated pamphlet form, in order that I he ever-increasin;s stream of tourists will j not miss them, and thus will not miss I the joys of the Stratford ascent, j A visitor to Taranaki, in conversation with the Stratford reporter of the News the other day, said lie could not understand how it was that the people of the province had {or so lon# remained silent concerning the scenic glories of Mount / Egniont and the recuperative effect of a \ stay high up on its slopes. He had | "(lone" sonic tours, he said, hut lie knew of no tiller scenic attraction, and no I better place to enjoy n, real rest from j labor, "far from the madding crowd." j yet. in daily touch with I ho world beyond j i hp bush, 'if this mountain had been close to a town in America," he went

on, "1 don't quite know what they would have done about if, hut you can just reckon they would have made some fuss about it, and made it -the" resort for men with money, a favorite holiday

place for all classes, and a national I sanatorium. Here you seem to have too jealous of one another to make one big combined effort to popularise your glorious mountain. Kaclt town was afraid that someone might visit a house a few miles away from that in which its interests chiefly lay. but that spirit was foolish and should lie wiped out. The mountain was a big tiling, too big to be bounded about by little jealousies; too big for people with little souls; too big to be hidden under a bushel. Mount Egmont will come into its own as the great mountain resort, second only to the Southern Alps, which, of course, present attractions of a different type, and are more the resort of princes. As a visitor I am glad to sec that New Plymouth has started its Tourist and Expansion League, and 1 congratulate its leaders on the work done, which must prove of tremendous value to the town. The Stratford Mountain Club is another institution with somewhat similar objects, and it should have a very useful existence. You ought to try and get the other towns to form clubs of the kind, and then amalgamate them into 'Tho Taranaki Society for Popularising Taranaki's Great Mountain,' or some shorter title with the same meaning. Feasibly the 'Mount Egmont Club' would do as well. If all were to work enthusiastically, enough money could be raised to go in for a big publicity scheme, and tho erection of hostelries, telephones, guide-posts, and all sorts of things would bring its train of visitore."

The 'Stratford Mountain Club would doubtless be pleased to see these kindred associations formed, for it has in mind not only the popularising of the East Egmont House, but the encouragement of the mountain tourist traffic generally. ft is officially stated that Mr. A. J. Davey's drag made the trip to the Stratford Mountain House on Friday in two hours from Stratford—a record. The return trip occupied threequarters of an hour.