THE THREATENED EXODUS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13744, 8 May 1908, Page 6

THE THREATENED EXODUS.

NEW ZEALANDERS IN QUEENSLAND. MANAWATU FARMERS' VIEWS. - [CI TELEGRAPH.— COUBEB.POSDESI-] t Wkli.ikgtox. Thursday. Two well-known Manawatu farmers, Messrs. S: R. Lancaster ami "Hector Booth, who- have for ninny years been leading officials of the Manawatu A. and 3*. Association, returned yesterday from a visit to Australia. While there they visited the famous Darling Downs.' where it is said a number of New Zealanders -are settling. The Downs themselves, they state, are being mostly sold at from £2 to £13 pel acre, according to locality. The highest sum paid has been £27 per acre, but off this land the purchaser made £100 per acre in the first year. No English grasses need to be sown, the Downs being covered with natural herbage. it* a paddock is ploughed and. left alone a thick growth of natural grass springs up and covers it with a grass resembling . couche and buffalo grass. It yields a good return, and has given splendid results in fattening. On this land huge crops of maize are also grown.

Messrs. Lancaster and Booth consider that young New Zealanders would have a good chance, in Queensland. New Zealanders, as a. matter of fact, are in demand over there. Those who have already settled on the laud are doing better than the Australians, and showing more up to date methods. The visitors, however, advise that new- arrivals before taking up land should first seek employment, and become familiar with the conditions, for farming in Queensland is different in many respects from that over here. Atthe same time, stated the visitors, they had read while travelling, that the population of Queensland, despite the efforts of the Government to induce settlement, was less this year than last. This seemed to indicate some resaon for dissatisfaction with the country. The shadow of former droughts hung over the land, but to counteract the, probability of droughts in tne future irrigation was preceding on a large scale.

In connection with the threatened exodus Southern politicians do not seem to take it very seriously. Mr. A. W. Hogg, member for Masterton, says:—" There is one thing to feel satisfied over, and that is, if we are going to lose some residents one way, we stand a very good chance of getting their places rilled, and that very quickly. I was in Wellington the other, day, and Avas shown a number of letters from, people residing in Canada and Natal, who wished to settle in New Zealand, and were writing for information on .the subject. It appears that Canada, is over-populated with immigrants, and that, things are very bad there. They want to know how much, money they; must have in their possession before they will be enabled to land in New Zealand. The situation in Natal is even worse, and it appears to me that we shall shortly receive a large number of these people from Canada and Natal —people, by the way, who are already practical farmers." So. far as the Wairarapa was eonccrend, Mr. Hogg stated that there was an areabetween Masterton and Pahiatua of sonic 16,000 acres of native lands, which could be very well; turned to advantage by being cut up into reasonable areas and leased. The old leases of these sections were just on the point of expiring, and "he had received a promise from Sir Robert Stout that be (Sir Robert) and Mr. Ngata, who constitute the Native Lands Commission, would shortly .visit Masterton and hold a sitting, so that something might be done in the matter. Mr. Hornsby, M..P. for Wairarapa., says N the movement reminds him of a movement many years back when the cry was " To the Argentiue." The. offers which were being made to fanners by the Queensland Government were no doubt of an attractive nature, but nothing could make up, to the ordinary settler on land, for the wonderful fertility of soil and general equableness of climate of New . Zealand. Where else, after a long dry season, such as that just experienced, could there have been such a marvellous recovery of the whole face of nature as wc had seen? In no other country but New Zealand, so far as.be knew, could such a change have taken place in so little time. "New Zealand stands alone," lie says. Farmers who intended to go to Queensland should consider that in that country there were stock diseases which did not exist in New Zealand, but which approximated nearly to the condition of things in Argentine. Nothing could have prevented a bix exodus of New Zealand farmers in years past to Argentine, but for the diseases of stock in that otherwise wonderful country, i Mr. Hornsby deprecates the continued "attempts by certain New Zealanders to create dissatisfaction in their own country.. To fly to Queensland to escape the labour conditions of New Zealand would be jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire. Here in New Zealand the social revolutionaries had but a small chance of impressing the great majority of the people, but in Queensland they were already a recognised partv, and their demands were growing greater as time passed.