DOMINIONS' ROYAL COMMISSION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15708, 10 March 1913, Page 7

DOMINIONS' ROYAL COMMISSION.

VISIT TO WERAROA. | ADDRESS BY SIR RIDER HAGGARD. (Peb United Pbess Association.) ■WELLINGTON, March 8. Members of tho Trade Commission visited Weraroa State Farm to-day. Several of tho commissioners leave lor Taramaki on Tuesday to inspect the dairy country and ironsand ore on the ooa6t. Tho Wellington sittings will probably conclude on Tuesday. Mareih 9. Speaking at the luncheon given to the members of the Dominions Royal Commission at the Weraroa State Farm on Satur-: day, Sir Ridor Haggard, in tho absence of; Sir Edgar Vincent (chairman) and Sir Alfred i Bateman, thanked the director for the hos- j pitality 6hown to the visiting commissioners. ■ There was, he-said, not the slightest doubt ; in his judgment from what he had observed : .that agriculture was and must be the coun- i try's mainstay. " On agriculture you do now . and will in future depend. I say nothing in ■ deprecation of your industries or manufactures, but it is the soil you will have to look to, and if you will allow a farmer to tell you so, I think you. will do well by every possible and, legitimate means not only to cultivate that soil, but to people that soil, Here you.have a great oountry and an extraordinarily fertile country, although there are stretches not so fertile as others, but what is the good of this fertility unless you have men to take advantage of that .fertility and evoke it from (he soil?" He urged them to lay aside all prejudices and fears such as those of Labour and the rest, and to do their best by every possible means to people their lands. " So, gentlemen, for many generations will you carry on your prosperity, and not only carry it on, but increase it more and more, and so will your children be able to write on the records of this land these words which I eee inscribed before me, 'Empire, peace, and plenty.'"