NEW ZEALAND CRITICISED

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2311, 2 December 1925, Page 7

NEW ZEALAND CRITICISED

PALMER STONIAN’S DEFENCE. REPLIES TO COMPLAINTS. LONDON Oct. 15. Provncial newspapers continue to publish letters regarding New Zealand as a place for settlement. No sooner does some disappointed correspondent point out the vicissitudes and drawbacks of the country than some New Zealander in England replies. contradicting or correcting the statement. A correspondent to the "Scotsman” complains that land in the Dominion is very much dearer than in Great Britain. “Another Palmerstonian" points out that New Zealand is one of the greatest exporters of dairy produce in the world, and her butter and cheese command prices here little short of those of the Home product. “Together with these facts must be considered the fact, also, that farming is con siderably cheaper there, because there is no expense as here of winter stabling of stock and winter feeding machinery has largely been introduced and labour costs reduced; that farm wages are very little more than here; that most farmer owner - themselves work on their properties: that the majority of the farms are freehold that rates and taxes are lower; and, by no means the least factor, the system of co-operation prevailing right through to the marketing of the produce considerably lessons costs.” “New Zealand,” the correspondent goes on to say, "has had a rvar debt to fb.ee and to fund not so very far short, per capita, of Great Britain’s. Yet she has got over the worst of her difficulties. Her income-tax has been reduced by more than 88 1-3 per cent since 1922, penny postage has been reinstated, telegraph rates have been reduced, her national debt has been reduced, a sum of two millions sterling has been provided to help exsoldiers w T ho suffered in their land purchases from inflated values, and yet she has had substantial budget bal ances since the ‘slump’ year. “I could tell of other achievements were there the space. Her trade per capita Is the greatest in the world, her purchases of British goods arc, per individual, a world’s record; living, standard for standard, is cheaper there than in Britain. And yet this is the country that your correspondent disparages and warns people against. I really think that ho is posing as a humorist.” A Yorkshiroman, writing from the Waikato, tells of a visit to a friend, who. a few years ago, was struggling and battling against the world and the elements on a small farm in Yorkshire. He says:—"Thanks to his grit and determination, he is now the proud possessor of rolling acres of rich, well-drained soil, where winter and summer alike one can see close upon a hundred cows grazing upon the paddocks, Every morning and then again in the evening these cows are milked in a huge milking shed by the latest device for machinemilking. All is worked by electricity and thus are the labours of the milkers reduced to a minimum. Ho owns his own house, and during the years of tenancy has gradually improved upon and added to, so that to-day, what with the dean concrete paths, evenly-clipped hedgerows, along with a well laid-out tennis court and gardens, the house is worthy of the tenancy of even any of the warrich, purse-proud, self-satisfied millowners who happen to be rolling about in your midst. Besides possessing his own touring model our worthy son from Yorkshire eats his own homefed and cured bacon, eggs, veal and cheese and butter from his factory', so that he is pretty well independent of outside sources.”