MR W. P. REEVES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6623, 12 September 1908, Page 10

MR W. P. REEVES

HIS NEW APPOINTMENT. IMPERIAL WORK OP ANOTHER KIND. (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, July 31. Ihe announcement of tho Hon. W Pcmber Reeves’ apointment as Director oi the Loudon School of Economics, has boon very well received, and many eulogistic paragraphs have appeared in the London papers with reference to the career of the distinguished New Zealander. I called on him this morning to offer my congratulations, and the High Commissioner spoke readily regarding tho now appointment. ° I have had, * he said, "an extraordinary number of most kind congratulations from various quarters both academic and political. It has been a very encouraging experience.” Mr Reeves went, on to say that lie did not want to give up Imperial work because ho was resigning tho High Commit] onernhip'. In making tho change be wanted to take up Imperial work of a different kind. “My view of tho London School of Economics.” ho said, “ia that it should bo made an Imperial institution. Tho British Government is utilising it now to a considerable extent; I want the Colonial Governments to utilise it also. I hope to get in touch with economic education in tho colonies and to offer facilities at the school for colonial research students to specialise ovur here. There are some sverv good, openings in this country, for.

youtig colonials with an aptitude for economics. The Government Departments place a pood deal of statistical and research uork in the way of graduates from the London. School ol Economics, and a number of the more piomining scholars find their way into permanent and well-paid Government appointments. The fact that as Now Zealand ilirrb Commissioner 1 have pot in touch with the gnat department* here will. J bcluvc*. be of very real value to mo at the school." “I suppose the new appointment precludes the possibility of a trip back to New Zealand for a pood while, at any rater '

“Alas. yes. It is thirteen yearn now since 1 saw New Zealand. J (should, like to have revisited it after being five or -six years away, but the necessary holiday was never offered to me, and 1 would not ask for it. Latterly it would not have been easy to got away for Ion;; enough to inako the trip. But it is characteristic of my critics that they should suggest I am petting out of touch with New Zealand, when they have never given mo an opportunity to revisit it. I shall have to content myself now with a short holiday in the country before taking up work at the school on October Ist. It has been a very trying summer, and I feel rather fagged, but on the whole I have got through it remarkably Troll.” “I am immensely interested in the school,” he added, “and believe- it has an important future before it. 1 shall throw myself into the work with enthusiasm, but I am not prepared oil-band to sketch out a policy. The schoool is in touch with active husiiw-K life, and is intended to fit men for the active administration and financial walks in life. It is not such a small institution either, for in one way and another there were something like 1300 students on its books last year.” NEW ZEALAND'S FUT'UEE. In response to a request for an ekprestf?ion of his opinion ou the future before New Zealand, Mr Kecvs observed lo an interviewer that it was interesting country politically and a promising one commercially. During the last dozen years or so its people had been reaping some of the fruit of many years' toil ami colonisation, and the country had been fulfilling some of tho hopes that had long ago been formed of it. “No one who knows New Zealand,” said Mr Kccvos, “can have any doubt about its interesting - destiny, which, .so far as we can predict, will be a very happy one. It will be an advanced democracy, but 1 do not think it will be of tho wild and turbulent, or oven extreme character that fcomc pec-plo are given to predicting. As a matter of fact, you will have a very largo class, relatively speaking, of yeoman farmers •and small country gentlemen, similar to those in England in a different age. ''The Democratic party will be sufficiently strong to sweep a way nearly all the great holdings of land, but they will not divide, even if they want to do so, the moderate-sized or substantial holdings. There will be estates of some thousands of acres and plenty of them, but no gigantic properties. There will bo a large class of farmers holding anything between fifty and fifteen hundred acres. We have a very largo class indeed of farmers farming their own land or as tenants of tho State on long lenses. These being educated people, and not necessarily obscurantists or unbusinesslike persons, they will have a great steadying influence in the country. “So far from thinking that Now Zealand will elide into any abyss of anarchy or disturbance, I eonvstinica wish 1 i could be certain that it would advance democratically a little faster in the future. I think it will advance, but certainly not too fast; the mam reason being this large number of landed proprietors with moderately-sized holdings?— intelligent men who will exorcise great influence in political -affairs.