SWISS MIGRANTS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 14 June 1939, Page 5

SWISS MIGRANTS

FARMERS AND FARM-HANDS WORK IN TARANAKI i Unite.) Press Association! WELLINGTON, This Day. ! A score of young Swiss migrants arriv. I ed at Wellington yesterday bv the Awatca j to settle in New Zealand‘ as farmers and 1 , farmhands. There were 18 stalwart young men, three accompanied by their wives,! and a 19-year-old Swiss girl. With them came Mr Frank Ehrler, a Taranaki farmer fer the past 16 years, but also a native of Switzerland. “They are good farmers and hard work- f er.s.” said Mr Ehrler, in an interview.: “There is not enough farm land left in j Switzerland and these lads, cannot get ! farms. New Zealand looked more attrac- : five to them than Australia, for here they j need only £4O landing money, a s against £2OO in Australia. All the members of j the party intend to take up dairy-farming I in Taranaki. They have all been engaged already by Taranaki farmers.” Mr Ehrler and other Swiss residents of New Zealand helped the newcomers) through the customs formalities and other preliminaries to their landing, since few 1 of them could speak more 111 an a few! words of English. Among them was Joseph. Neiderost,, aged 27, an expert skiier, who. Mr Ehrler 1 said, had recovered many bodies from alpine disasters in the past five years, I and had also rescued several people alive from precarious positions on the mountains. Speaking through an interpreter, Mr Neiderost said that he had been for some years instructor to one of he military details organised to carry out rescue work in the mountains. They were called up every winter, and last season he was one of those who took part in the attempt to rescue a party of soldiers overcome by an avalanche. Only two of the men were rescued alive. With some pride, he displayed a medal of high membership of the Schweizer Alpen Club.