MATERIAL WEALTH

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21603, 4 January 1945, Page 4

MATERIAL WEALTH

UNION OF S. AFRICA GISBORNEITE’S LETTER comparison" with n.z. A comparison of conditions, of work and life in South Africa and New Zealand, offered in a letter to a' Herald staff member from a former Gisborne resident,- suggests that New Zealanders are poorer but by no means less happy than the people of the other Dominion, Prices of food in Johannesburg, though under control, are in some cases higher than in Gisborne. The people there receive no white bread, and mutton is Is lOd per lb. Petrol, on the other hand, is 2s 9d per gallon, and restrictions are less severe, 13 gallons per month being allowed for a heavy type of tourer. Travel by car is restricted, however, to a maximum of 75 miles from the home of the car-owner, which in a country of great distances must entail some hardship. Housing costs appear to be infinitely dearer in the Union, despite the access to cheap native labour. A middle-class home costs about £4OOO, whereas £ISOO will still buy a respectable dwelling in New Zealand’s provincial centres.

Social conditions here arc more equable, according to the Johannesburg resident. A great deal of hustle in his adopted home. city is superficial, but it leads to such manifestations as a high incidence of motor-car fatalities; while security of property is less noticeable there than in New Zealand. The writer remembers having spent two and a half years camping on the Kaiti Beach 30 years ago and having lost not so much as a button, though his camp was untenanted throughout the day. “Over here, if one put up a tent and left it for half an hour, it would be a hard job to find the holes where the tent-pegs were sunk,” he state! “If a car breaks down in the country, or even in the suburbs, it has to be watched all night; otherwise one would be lucky to find the chassis in the morning.” The enormous material wealth of the country has recently been increased by the discovery of enormous gold resources in the Orange Free State. “We only want to discover oil here, and then this country would have everything,” the writer adds.