UNKNOWN

Dunstan Times, Issue 3101, 9 January 1922, Page 2

UNKNOWN

►R SETTLERS

of bis visit to New related in the Lonby Viscount Northparticularly to the by the Dominion to ■’■and though bis visit lasted the facts ho gives "have by New Zealanders well BBPRinted with the whole of their fwouderful country.’’ "If I wore a young man of agricultural bent and training, with the Scot’s industry and adaptability tor settlement,” Lord Northclifle writes, I would take my knowfcdgo of the dairy farm to Now Zealand, leaving my capital, if I bad any, behind mo at Homo, to await the time when I could use it to advantage. "Let mo say at once that New Zealand does not want tho kind of man that we don’t want. As usual, round men are going out to fill square holes. People are leaving London for New Zealand who would bo unhappy even m a chango to Liverpool, and bored stin, besides being hopelessly useless, on a farm in Perthshire.” , After quoting’an official description of “share-making,” Lord Northclifle proceeds:—"Share-milkers, if they are thrifty, can soon own their own farms, whether through the elastic system or mortgage that obtain in New Zealand or by capital from home, or by saving. Share-milkers are of all types. Most of those that I met wore New Zealandborn. Every one was of British stock; and, let it bo remembered (and may it always be maintained!), 98 per cent, of the population is British. "New Zealand is not a paradise, and it has its troubles, labor difficulties, and Oven a handful of noisy Reds. New Zealand needs more railways, more roads, but above all it needs more people. For the parent who is deciding his son’s future, or the son who is d ficussing what his parents shovila do for him, 1 suggest that tea-planting in As-* sam, orange-growing in Florida, fruitgrowing in British Columbia are speculations compared to the opportunity of becoming a landowner at 30 years of age in New Zealand. People who ought not to go a-dairying arc delicate youths sent abroad for their health, men unacquainted with country life, and farmers too advanced in years. New Zealand, moreover, has l its climates and its ways. A farmer in a good big way at Home brought out his sheep. Ins bead men, his- laborers, and their wives. He was highly skilled, and had been very successful in England. He received good advice from people here, as do all who come, for pioneers are only too glad to help each other. But hje l would have none of it —he was the son of a farmer and had been a farmer all his life. He lost everything. On the other hand, I met three brothers, who had been farm laborers at Home, but were landlords here. \ Most of the Englishmen I met were of the upper or the middle class. A pciblic school boy, who disliked the stock exchange, Iwl learnt the rudiments of farming ;*'<£ie of the Canadian Government farms. He liked Canada. he said, but preferred New Zealand. ■ There were no foreigners here. He had a farm which,, from my point of view', was heavily mortgaged; hut other Englishmen showed me how he would speedily pay it off as they had paid off their mortgages, and become owners of many broad acres in a few years. The Englishman in New Zealand seems to have become as migratory as the red deer we have exported there. One young man had earned enough to pay for on,e farm and was about to sell if and his stock and buy a larger and better herd. The: sign outside farmhouses, "For Sale,” is a little misleading. It does not mean that the proprietor wants to sell, but that he is willing to sell. The first few years of those young settlers’ lives seem not to, be free of some desire to return to England But there is little time for thought, for the work is from dawn to dark. Some of the young men go back to get a wife. Almost all of them return to New Zealand. The certainty of a home and the ownership of land are immense attractions. Sport is another. New 1 Zealand is the home of the red deer, game birds of all sorts, tho giant trout, the kingfisb. 1 was looking at the game bag of a man who came out ten years ago and is now sufficiently pi osperous „o take a good holiday when he wishes. A month’s fishing and shooting brought in over 200 rainbow trout weighing from 31b to 15 lb, over 200 pheasants, as .many Californian quail, duck and teal. He Is not much of a stalker. And whereas at Home one reads of prosecutions for rabbit-shoot-mg, the prosecutions here are for not rabbit-shooting. As to the climate, a settler said to me, " I went Home, but 1 could not stand the absence of sunshine.” I reminded him that England is not all fog and gloom, as it is believed to be by some Now Zealanders. But I laid to admit that, with -an interval of a day or two, we had had continuous sunshine every day of the New Zealand August, which corresponds to about the month of March in England. There are many climates in New Zealand, but all, from an English point of view,_ arc temperate, and in no case so frigid and uncertain as cur own. The other day, when an emigrant ship arrived here, it was met by a labor demonstration with banners indicating that immigrants were not wanted. Some kinds of immigrants are not wanted. Some kinds of immigrants are not wanted here or elsewhere. I was told that the artisan who would only stick to Ins one craft is not needed. He should be adaptable, a jack of several trades. Building, for instance. is a- very different matter herefrom what it is at Home., for, as in most bcw countries, buildings outside tho cities are constructed by professional mien. Clerks and "somethings in the city,” unless possessed of seme special knowledge and provided with occupation before they arrive, had best stay at home. The Bar seems to provide a considerable number of wanderers in search of homes. Men required for New Zealand should. I am sure, he young, and. if married, newly married and wisely married. There does not seem to be any difference in social status here. I saw our pnblic-ebool boys and the farm laborers in cheery association delivering their milk at the creameries. At a local dance there were no social differences whatever. I know nothing of the social life of New Zealand towns. I was told that here and there there are iinitat.ons of the snobbishness, now. I think, happily beginning io disappear from our provincial towns. In a country where a well-born lad from a great miblic school is a share-milker under a farm laborer, there is not likely to he much question of social distinction.