SEEING AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19149, 15 October 1925, Page 14

SEEING AUSTRALIA.

LORD APSLEY'S EXPERIENCES. ADVENTURES IN THE NORTH. LIFE ON GROUP SETTLEMENT. [from our. own correspondent. ] SYDNEY, Oct. 9. Lord Apsiey will bo remembered as the son of a British peer—Viscount Bat.hurst, proprietor of the London Morning Post—who, having to attend the Empire Press Conference, travelled incognito to Australia as a migrant in the third-class and afterwards worked on Victorian farms, in order to gain a first-hand knowledge of migration conditions. As part of his programme, Lord Apsiey spent some time in the Northern Territory. Landing at Darwin, he went by train to Katharine, and thence travelled south-westerly 100 miles with Mr. Michael Terry's tractor cars and thence on horseback 200 miles along the Dry River track to Wave Hill station, where Lady Apsiey, who had come by car over a different route, was awaiting him.. The party then struck off in a westerly direction across the border to West Australia through Hall's Creek and across to Derby, where they caught the aerial mail to Perth. The need for communications was one of the things that most impressed Lord Apsiey in the North and he is satisfied that the country will never be settled until railway facilities are provided, ''This really is an extraordinarily healthy country," said Lord Apsiey. "The people who are there live io a great age. Many of them are over 70. and they are. still like young men. I met one old driver of 75 who still goes up and down the stock routes with cattle. There are not many white women, but those 1 saw seemed perfectly happy and healthy. These people don't seem to have any grievances. Their lives seem to be happy and the men are paid well. Anyone who wants an enjoyable holiday cannot do better than take a, car up through the Territory with a stock of provisions. [ enjoyed my trip immensely and added greatly to my store of knowledge." Subsequently in West Australia, Lord Apsiey spent a fortnight on one of the group settlements as a newly-arrived immigrant and nobody in the place was aware of his identity. Speaking of these experiences. Lord Apsiey said: "1 jonied one of the settlements because they are, in the, nature of an experiment arid I wanted to see how they were likely to develop. I became a group settler, and was furnished with a block of land with a house on it. In these settlements co-operation is the keynote. In group time the settlers work for one, another. Group time is 43 hours a week. During most of the time I was there T was working for another man in my group time. " The work was hard but healthy, and I found the life, interesting and in spite of the short period I was able to devote to it, 1 think 1 acquired much interesting information concerning the problems of group settlements. T found a good typp of men and the community spirit among them all was good. The people I saw were happy. They had security, the work was interesting, and they could see ahead of them. They were pioneering under good conditions, making homes for themselves and children. I would have been glad to stay a longer period with them." Lord Apsiey, who is a member of the House of Commons, will be able to tutor some of his fellow-Commoners ill regard to Australian conditions. As he. told an interviewer: "I have to go back to England. In fact, 1 am overdue now, but I shall return there with a vast amount of useful knowledge."