NEW ZEALAND STARTS TO HUSTLE. Messrs. Donne and Hamer Ticketed "For London."

THE Government has come to a wise decision to bring the High Commissioner's office in London right tip to date and extend its usefulness. It has been suffered to get more and more out of touch with the Dominion for want of fresh, blood from this side of the globe. None of the present officers of the staff outside the new High Commissioner has visited New Zealand for fifteen years. Some of them have never been, here at all. How could they advise inquirers at Home about the actual conditions in a country with which they were personally unfamiliar, or only knew at first hand fifteen years ago? • • • It was a drawback that struck nearly every New Zealand business man who visited the Old Country. Another thing that infallibly arrested his attention was the systematic way in which Canada and the United States pushed their wares at Home and hustled for immigrants of the best class — farmers, with capital and experience, who were prepared straightway to go out on the virgin soil of a new country and add to its productive power by making homes for themselves. Cabinet has now dealt with these urgent .matters, and has taken steps to get in the front Tank of the procession. • • • In his speech at Marton on Tuesday night the Premier indicated this new policy. The first steps are important office changes. Mr. Walter Kennaway, the head of the Commissioner's staff, has passed the age limit — he is a veteran of over eighty — and retires afteir a strenuous and useful official life. He is to be succeeded by his first lieutenant, Mr. C. "Wray Palliser, an active and energetic officer, bred in New Zealand, and devoted to its interests. Mr. T. H. Hamer, Undersecretary for Mines, is to take up Mr. Palliser's duties as auditor and accountant, and Mr. T. E. Donne, who started our Tourist Department and: has brought it up to its present high development, goes to London as Trade ■and Immigration Commissioner. • • • Better appointments for these positions could hardly be made. As private secretary to the various Premiers who ruled New Zealand from 1887 up to 1906, Mr. T. H. Hamer has been brought into close touch with all the functions of the State, has visited every part of the country, and has a close and' wide acquaintance with its people and its manifold interests. He also possesses in an eminent degree the tact and the savoir faire which are such valuable qualities in, high public office. • • ■ Mr. T. E. Donne also possesses these qualities, and, in addition, has had the very finest training for the achievement of complete success in promoting the trade of the Dominion, at Home, and sending out the very class of settlers it needis. It has been his business fox years to visit and explore every nook anfl cranny, so to speak, of New Zealand. For years he has been in the daily habit of loading people up with reliable up-to-date information about the Dominion. He has not his lesson ttrlearn. He goes Home knowing exactly what he has to do, and carrying with him the knowledge and the means to do it. Only this week a farmer

from Lancashire lias been at the Tourist Department gaining information from Mr. Donne on behalf of a large number of practical farmers, who are anxious to settle in, a new country. They have capital ranging from £1000 to £6000 each, and would be producers from the time they got on, the land. • • • That is the sort of settler New Zealand wants, and that is just the kind that Canada and the States have been capturing wholesale. Mr. Donnie is up to date in. his methods, has pleinty of enthusiasm, and would devote his special attention to the kmd of immigrant just referred to. He would also earn his salary over and over again by finding mew markets for our staple products, overcoming local prejudices, and peisonally pushing our trade in a thousand and one ways that only the man om the spot can. find out. In short, we heartily applaud the Premier's discernment in deciding to send Messrs. Donne and Hamer to London to liven up things for New Zealand at the seat of the Empire. Their work willl soon speak for itself, as it has done in the past. And with a staff of hustlers like Messrs. Donne, Hamer, Palliser, and J. A. Mason (his popular private secretary) to rely on, the High Commissioner for New Zealand 1 should shake things up for us on the other side of the world.