FARMERS AT HOME

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 221, 19 August 1931, Page 4

FARMERS AT HOME

TOUR OF GREAT BRITAIN. HIGH COMMISSIONER’S WELCOME. The members of tho party of New Zealand farmers who are at present visiting Great Britain were officially welcomed at New Zealand House by the High Commissioner, Sir Thomas Wilford. The High Commissioner offered the visitors the hospitality of New Zealand House, which, indeed, with any assistance his officers could give, was theirs, by right, as New Zealanders. Ho asked them to make full use of this privilege. Sir Thomas then went on to say that no tour of Britain would bo complete for any New Zealand farmer without a visit to the Low Temperature Research Station at Cambridge. Ho was pleased to see that it was included in their itinerary. There had been valuable results from tho research canned out there, especially in regard to the carriage of fruit and butter on ocean liners. At the Wool Research Institution at Torridon, and the Leeds University, remarkable discoveries had been made in the direction of improving the quality of wool, and the visitors would find that at both these institutions the principals would be only too pleased to show them the experiments and their results. The problem of tho world to-day, continued Sir Thomas, was how to lessen the cost of production—the cost of overhead charges. In New Zealand tho task ahead was to increase wool production and improve its quality where possible. At the two institutions to which he referred, research was devoted to other uses foil - wool, and the production of patent leather was one successful result. Then, at Aberystwyth, records were being made of tho results attending the feeding of sheep on different kinds of grasses. Records also were taken there of how many hours a sheep would eat, masticate, sleep and walk about, and the results were extraordinary.

Touching on other topics, Sir Thomas said that New Zealand was, in many ways, a lucky country. Every country had been hit by the present economic troubles. The fact that we were alongside Australia had prejudicially affected our exchange. Unfortunately there was great ignorance in regard to the separate entities of the two Dbminions—indeed, in the Oxford Dictionary of 1931 one would find reference to Australia'and to Australasia (the latter being defined as “Australia and the adjoining islands”), but no mention of New Zealand. Yet the Oxford Dictionary was the greatest recognised authority. Apparently it was not realised, even by this great source of information, that New Zealand was a separate Dominion, as far from Australia as Malta or Leningrad were from England. Producing a return which he had just had prepared, Sir Thomas said that in the year 1928 New Zealand had paid the shipping companies for the transportation of our daily products to England the sum of £1,332,000, yet Denmark, virtually at the door of Britain, and our chief rival in dairy produce, had to nay for artificial foodstuffs fo!r daily cows and pigs, £8,228,000, an item New Zealand escaped because of our constant supplies of green grass. It was as well to remember this fact because it made one wonder sometimes whether the Danish farmer, with his greater cost of pro duction, was really getting a higher equivalent in price than the New Zealander, and whether at the end of the year he had more money in the bank, considering the higher proportional cost he incurred in feeding his cows and pigs. In conclusion, tho High Commissioner again welcomed the party to England and to New Zealand House. In thanking Sir Thomas, Mr W. Runciman said that their party, because of the economic stress in New Zealand, and the Hawke’s Bay earthquake, was not a large one, and very much smaller than had been originally intended. They were very much indebted to Sir Thomas for his welcome, and he gave their assurance that they would have been greatly disappointed to return to New Zealand without meeting the High Commissioner.