A NEW ZEALANDER IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1290, 19 November 1896, Page 10

A NEW ZEALANDER IN AMERICA.

American papers received by the San Francisco mail show that Thomas Dwan has been interviewed largely during his travels in Canada and the United States.

He seems to have given the American journalists a lot of valuable information concerning New Zealand. Air Dwan is warm in his praise of Air Seddon’s Alinistry, and gave particulars of our system of liberal land laws, advanoes to settlers and other important liberal measures. The Toronto Alail devotes long space to New Zealand and our Liberal Government, and speaks of the measures passed by the Seddou administration in glowing colours.

Letters show that Mr Dwan is now travelling through the States and Canada, but he sees nothing in the way of Liberal legislation to compare with numbers of our recentlypassed laws. He has visited several of the Prohibition States and found things in a terrible state of chaos, property decreasing in value, drunkenness prevalent everywhere and everything generally unsatisfactory. The police in Prohibition States seldom arrest drunkards, as it would never do to make the statistics read badly. Liquor is sold everywhere on the sly, and one lias no difficulty in getting a drink. The towns are full of big chemists’ shops, which take the places of hotels, and where liquor is dispensed as “ medicine.” The proprietors of these shops are making big fortunes, as there is no expense in running them, no servants to keep, no boarding establishment to be kept up, &c.,

and, although they are called Prohibition States, they are that only in name. Another habit that he found very prevalent, taking the place of liquor to a certain extent, was the use of morphine, which he considers worse than the drink.

While in Canada Mr Dwan visited his old home on the Grand river, where his former friends gave him a big reception. He also visited the twine binder manufactories, in order to enquire into the use of our flax, but states that he found that the manufacturers were loth to use the New Zealand article, as most of it was so badly dressed. He saw while there a large quantity of Wellington flax in oue of the large factories, which they had bought at equal to <£l(> per ton in New York. They anticipate a rise in this article, owing to the insurrection in the Philippines. Binder twine is mostly made out of the waste of the mauilla and the sisal, but there will be little chance for our product to get on a proper footing unless the system of dressing is more perfect. One of the largest factories m Canada was closed while he was there owing to the competition by the Government in the manufacture of binder twine in the gaols, which are so full that the.y have to put the prisoners to work at something in order to defray the cost of keeping them. Mr Hwan thinks that if the binder 1 twine business was gone into with the latest machinery, which he has seen in America, if it was started in Foxton or where they produce the flax, a good profit could be made out of it, as none but the best material would then be used, and the mill-owners would have to dress it properly for their own benefit, as they would soon be able to see the advantage of a proper finish if the manufacture was was carried on in the immediate vicinity.