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A National Service.

“It has been truly said that the Railways of New-Zealand are the national transportation service, for they touch the very heart of the country and the life of the people. They carry for the primary producers the means towards more and better production, they distribute the wares of the secondary industries, and they handle within the Dominion the overseas trade, in passengers and goods, to and from the ships that ply between New Zealand and the rest of the world.

In like manner, the Magazine of the New Zealand Railways gives a national service of reliable news and illustrations regarding this country in the principal aspects that have a measure of permanence and that are informative in a useful way to railwayman, to the general public of New Zealand, and to overseas people alike.

Certain overseas publications frequently reprint articles and features from the Magazine, thus extending this national publicity to important sections of overseas readers. Besides a considerable and widespread direct mailing list to residents in other countries, there are many indications that large numbers of these Magazines distributed in New Zealand are ultimately mailed to friends or business associates in other countries.

Articles in the Magazine also frequently supply the basis of broadcast talks upon New Zealand, while some New Zealand publications made good use of illustration blocks which first appear in the Magazine. Then the whole of the press of the Dominion from time to time reproduces from the Magazine new historical matter, opinions of leading writers upon features of national life, and authoritative articles upon more or less technical subjects related to railways and transport.

This is an important all round national service, which the Railways Magazine, as the publication of the Dominion's great national transport organisation, is able to provide because of the facilities it has for obtaining first-hand information from all authoritative sources upon the subjects with which it deals.

With each country pressing its claims for the attention of travellers, every avenue of national publicity must be used for the purpose, and in addition a fervour of belief is necessary to carry conviction and win the traffic. Radio, pictures, descriptions, historical stories, and books and pamphlets about the country all play their part, and the reports carried back by pleased visitors supplement the more impersonal impressions.

Upon the aspect of tourist traffic inducement, in which work the New Zealand Railways Magazine assists, it is noteworthy that while Great Britain in the first six months of the current year had a total of 97, 198 holiday visitors, New Zealand, in the twelve months to the end of March last had 14,287 tourist visitors. On this basis Great Britain may be expected to show 200,000 visitors for a year as against New Zealand's 14,000. But Great Britain has thirty times the population of New Zealand, so it appears that on a population basis New Zealand is doing twice as well as Great Britain in travel promotion. When New Zealand's distance from the main masses of population is taken into account, this achievement in travel promotion is seen to be even more remarkable.

Some of Great Britain's increase of holiday visitors is attributed to the fact that it can ensure safety, ease and freedom to visitors. Such conditions apply to an equal degree in New Zealand.