IN PLEASANT PLACES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 259, 1 November 1928, Page 7

IN PLEASANT PLACES.

VIRTUES OP SETTLERS. (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) (Received 11 a.m.) LONDON, October 31. Mr. L. S. Amery, speaking at a meeting of the Society for the Settlement of Women instanced successful settlement under the most favourable conditions in Australia, notably in West Australia, Victoria and Queensland. He emphasised the optimism of 60 or 70 settlers at Mallee after unprecedented drought. He said he had never met a more cheerful community similarly conditioned. He was convinced as the result of his tour that women's co-operation and optimism was men's greatest asset. g Mr. W. Mackinder, M.P. (Lab., Shipley) declared that travelling thousands of miles in Australia controverted the English fallacy that Australian settlers were necessarily isolated from civilisation. Civic development had reached the world's highest standard in Australia. "I never saw slums in any city comparable with the British. There are no rickets in children comparable with the British, and I never saw a child barefooted. I never saw healthier children. I have not seen women more independent of men or more selfreliant than in Australia, notably the wives and daughters of backblock3 settlers."