THE OTEKAIKE ESTATE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10096, 13 March 1909, Page 4

THE OTEKAIKE ESTATE.

(Otago Daily Times' Correspondent). London, January 22. 'There could be no more ideal existence for a man with a few hundred pounds ;-t his command than to occupy one of these small farms." Mr \\~. 11. Campbell, speaking yesterday at the annual meeting of shareholders ji Messrs Robert Campbell and Sons, was lend in his praise of the life and conditions of the New Zealand small farmers. He thought especially that the occupants of their late freehold in the Waitaki Valley (the land purchased by the New Zealand Government) were bound to thrive under the new conditions allowed to them by that (ioveiTimcnt. They could imagine the profits likely to be earned by the industriotw settler, working with his family 200 acres of agricultural land. "On:' of the greatest- assets of New Zealand,'' said Mr Campbell, "is its cliniate. If you look at a ma]) of the world, I think you will see that a climate favorable to colonisation bv the English race is comparatively limited. I was talking the other day with a man who had resided for a number of yeiirs in Queensland, and when he described to me the conditions under which our fellow- countrymen live in the back blocks of that colony. 1 did not think that a New Zealandcr would like to change lots vviih them. A tettler in the centre of Australia, desirous of reaching one of the principal towns, has to travel in his bugay a distanc l of 20, 30. or 50 miles to the nearest railway station, and then has a journey of hundreds of miles before he reaches his de-stiitaliuii. In the case of your Waitaki Linnet* in New Zealand, his laud often adjoins lhe railway: at ail events, some- sir miles bring him to the train, and a journey of some 40 miles lands him at the port of Oamarii. "As an Englishman." observed tho chairman in conclusion, '"I must say I cannot but admire the policy of the New Zealand Government in thus creating a population of small proprietors: and 1 cannot but wonder at the stupidity of our ridel's here, who have never had the sense to establish a well thought-out scheme of Government emigration and an Imperial Board to regulate the commercial rotations between ourselves ami our colonics. The obstinacy of George 111. and his advisers in adhering to a few trumpery taxes lost us the United States. The carelessness and indolence of the so-called statesmen who have governed this country for the last 50 years has thrown away chances of establishing our surplus population in comfortable homes in Oreater Brita'n, united to the Mother Countrv by intimate ties of their common interest in"the traele of the Empire, which may never come again."