"TURNED IT DOWN."

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 186, 1 May 1908, Page 5

"TURNED IT DOWN."

SOME FACTS ABOUT QUEENSLAND. (by teleohaph.—special coiuiespondejit.) Auckland, April 30. A "correspondent, writing to tho '"Herald," strikes a blow'at the. efforts being made to induce New Zealand farmers to emigrate to Queensland. Ee gives tho following experience he had on tlio Northern Wairoa.: —Tho other day I was, ho says, conducting a southern runholder rouud tho district, andlie had mentioned to me a desire to go and see Queensland, as he had heard so much about that country. At the time I was talcing him to see a property belonging to a man who had been in Queensland, and had " turned .it down." I suggested that he should make some inquiries from this oxQueenslander, and this was the nature of tho conversation:— " I understand you were farming in Queensland?" , "Yes." "There is very fine land thereP'.' " Yes, , probably better than anything you have'got in New Zealand. Deep rich black soil. 3Uft. or 40ft. deep. You could wish for nothing better —nothing in the world." "May 1 venture to ask, then, why you preferred New Zealand?" 1 "Yes, bccauso I would rather wheel sawdust at tho mill down yonder at 6s. a day than livo in such a climate." This : was'. the • statement of a man ill affluent circumstances, .who owns a large ostato carrying a thousand each of cattlo'and sheep. He owned a lino property on tho Darling Downs, and when, lie could not sell it lie leased it and came away, and added that ho would have left the property anyhow rather than stay there. What ho said was this: — " For about five months in the year during autumn and winter -the sun shines out as brightly as in an Indian sky, without a oloud, but every morning a high wind gets .up, and you have positively to wear, an overcoat to keep yourself warm. This is not an occas:«nal occurrence. It happens, every) day, and life is a misery. Thon the summer —ivell, it i? anything from very warm to something else, and just what most peoplo hope to avoid."