AN IMPERIAL PEOPLE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 80, 5 April 1926, Page 6

AN IMPERIAL PEOPLE

IMPRESSIONS OF THE DOMINION SUGGESTION FOR COMMERCIAL MEN. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 28th January. Tho "Beviow of Reviews" contains an article on "A Woman's View of Empire," contributed by "Eva Adam" (Mrs. A. Moore), who went as delegate for this journal to the recent Imperial Press Conference.

"la New Zoaland," she says, "the delegates found an echo of home, for in these islands set in the Southern Seas thero live a people more Engjish than the English themselves. Though separated from us by some twelve thousand miles, and living in a now country where the conditions of daily life are necessarily somewhat different from ours, the Now Zealanders have not ai yet evolved marked national characteristics of their own. ■ They have set up another England in the southern hemisphere, retaining the speech, customs, and habits of the land from which their fathers came. Socially they are delightful men and women, and though most of them have never left the Bhoros of New Zealand they keep in the closest possible touch with English politics, problems, and literature in a way that many of us at Home might well envy. Their intense admiration of everything English is almost a fetish." PROGRESS Or TIMES AND CONSEQUENT CHANGES. New Zealanders are described as great Imperialists who show their Imperialism in a remarkably practical fashion, for they place most of their orders for merchandise in British markets, and nowhere in the world will you find the shops so filled with English goods as in the towns and villages of New Zealand. . "To the average Briton this perhaps may seem .very much in'the natural order of things; for the old slogan 'British goods are best and last longest' still carries; but times are changing, and . here I would utter a word of warning. Our American competitors. are making a tremendous bid to capture the trade of Australia, and by reason of mass production as well as of relative geographical proximity, they are often able to offer such terms as to render the purchase of British goods in New Zealand au act of patriotism rather than a good business deal. "New Zoalanders who are at present trading with Great Britain are the sons and grandsons of men who migrated from the Old Country, and to them England still stands for Home. But, with the passing of time, these sentimental ties must weaken; and then, with pressure from America in the shape of good quality merchandise at advantageous prices, the Mother Country may find the trade with this most loyal Dominion in grave jeopardy. "If—instead of contenting themselves with sending out commercial travellers whose .persistent reports seems to leave them unmoved —the heads of big industrial firms in England would themselves make a tour of the Dominions and establish personal contact with their customers, they would not only appreciate the gravity of American competition, but, by a study at first hand of Dominion needs, they would learn how to combat it. Commercial mon making such tours would bo the greatest ambassadors of an Empire which depends for its very existence upon oversea trade. OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE SETTLER. "l\ew Zealand is a land of great opportunities, and particularly for settleis with a certain amount of capital. The younger son, with a taste for .fanning and a credit of, say, £2000, has a promising career ahead of him, and he may reasonably expect to find himself a landed proprietor on' a large scale before he has reached middle age. But, for the would-be emigrant with no capital, it must bo admitted that there is little chance of a short cut to fortune in New Zealand. Developed land is hio-h in price—it runs from fiCO^EIOO an" acre—and the clearing of virgin bush country is a lengthy and expensive affaij. Yet, apart from the question of making a fortune, there are many good openings for the youth who is willing to work hard on another man's land, and is prepared to make his own way gradually." ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL BOY SCHEME. "Eve Adam" was interested in the public school boy apprentice scheme, and says that the Welfare Committee constantly visits the farms to inspect the conditions under which the boys are living, arid would remove them immediately if the farmer seemed in any way undesirable. "This rarely happens, however, lor the New Zealand farmer is a very high type of man, and he rogards it as his duty to the Empire to do all m his power to assist tho newly-arrived migrant from Home and help him to bcoomo.a good New Zealander. I visited several of these farms in Taranaki, and talked with Englishmen who had mi : crated under this scheme. They were all loud in praise of tho farmers who were teaching them their job. One man, indeod, confided to me how glucl ho was not to have boon in a position to buy a farm right away, as he was gaining, in his capacity as farm labourer: an experience of local conditions which would pi'ovo of inestimable value to him afterwards, and which he could never have acquired" so thorough; ly as under the Taranaki fanners scheme." 85, Fleet street.