TRADE ROUTES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 27, 1 February 1912, Page 2

TRADE ROUTES.

, » i AMERICA AND NEW ZEALAND. Mr. Alfred R. E. Burton, F.R.G.S., who is in business in Melbourne with Mr. G. Wi«e, was a passenger by th* Tahiti this morning from San Francisco, where he spout three months, on his way back from a trip to England and America, enquiring into trade conditions. Mr. Burton is enthusiastic as to the sea-going qualities of the vessel, and of her officers, crew, and staff, and has been commissioned to write a handbook on the subject for tho TJuion Company. Speaking to a Post representative he said that one of ' tho reasons that anything relating to Australia and New Zealand attracted attention in California was the near approach, of tho^ completion of the Panama Canal, and the consequent shortening of , tho distance between th© two countries. There was, he went on to 6ay, a scarcity of skilled labour in Australia, and on ihe other hand there were thousands of eligible workmg men idle in th* different industrial centres ot America who, if given the slightest encouragement by our Governments, would willingly come out here. "They ar* fine workers," he added, "fair workers, and hard workers, and, needless to say, earnest workers, and if it were practice able it seems a desirable thing that wo should make use of the opportunity, bei cause from my obeervation— and I have looked into it very carefully— tho class of men one 6an get from America to far preferable to any one can get from Europe. As is well known they at one« become good colonists, and fraternise with their fellow workers," In Rarotonga Mr. Burton said that although there is little friction between the Government representative and a certain section of the community, tho absence of drinking shops and tho natural productiveness of tho island np» pear to bo sending it on the up-grad«.