EX-PREMIER REID'S VISIT.

Evening Post, Volume LIX, Issue 30, 5 February 1900, Page 6

EX-PREMIER REID'S VISIT.

HIS IMPRESSIONS OF NEW, ZEALAND. [TBES3 ASSOCIATION.] (Received February 5, 9.35 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. The Right Hoa. G. H. Reid, ex-i^re-'flrier of New South Wales, who has just returned from a tour in New Zealand, has been interviewed oy a Sydney pressman as to his observations on the trip. i Mr. Reid said he was struck by the 1 general prosperity of the New Zealanders. The gap between the classes and I the masses was, he found, much smaller than usual. No sorb of bad legislation could keep New Zealand back, but so far as he could see there was a general belief in the measures with which Mr. Seddon's name was connected. On the federation question Mr. Reid said that Mr. Seddon had assured him of his thorough sympathy with the movement, and expressed the hope that New Zealand would yet find it possible to join with the other colonies. Personally, Mr. Reid found that there was a general interest in the question, but it went no further than interest, and was not within the sphere of practical politics. The only matter upon which the colony was concerned was the tariff. Mr. Reid thinks that if the New Zealanders could be assured of a reciprocity treaty with the Commonwealth their interest in federation would die out, but he told the leaders whom he met that the prospects of any such treaty were not encouraging. He is, however, sanguine that federation will become a serious question in the colony in the course of a few years.