PROSPECTS IN NEW ZEALAND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20290, 24 December 1927, Page 17

PROSPECTS IN NEW ZEALAND.

VARYING VIEWS. CHANCE FOR YOUNG MEN. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, November 16. Rotanan W. ,). W. Armstrong, of the Fromo Club, was tho speaker at tho Bath Rotary Club meeting at tho Red House, and dealt with some of his experiences in New Zealand, where he spent three happy years. Ho said ho frequently met some of the children of the first pioneers and some of tire later settlers, all of whom boro the burden of building up the country. It was truly amazing to consider all that had been done in that short period. There had never been any importation of cheap labour. It was one of the characteristics of New Zealand that it was so intensely British, and it was developed on British lines. Their industries, both primary and secondary were ours also. To a young immigrant from the Old Country he considered dairy farming offered good prospects, provided he was adaptable and yvilling to work. If those going out to the dominions thought they wore going to get something for nothing they would soon he disillusioned. He would not be in Fromc if he had found such a place.—(Laughter.) In the North Island it was always possible, nflor learning tho job, to get into touch with a farmer who wanted part or all of his farm to betaken over on tho half share system. Ho provided (he stock and capital, and the other provided the labour, and the profits were shared. By moans of this system many a well-to-do farmer had got his first start. “GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES?”

A “ Retired Civil Servant ” writes from Auckland to the Birmingham Post with reference to a broadcast message by the High Commissioner for New Zealand, who had remarked. “ There are golden opportunities in New Zealand for youths not obtainable in Britain.” The correspondent though the facts as viewed by himself after a few years' residence in New Zoaland, might appeal to retired servants of the army, navy, and civil service. Ho quotes reports that appeared in the newspapers about the same date ns Sir James' broadcast relative to conditions in the Dominion, and as the result he asks: " Whore is the golden opportunity for youth? I now know that a man with limited capital coming to New Zealand with a family risks seeing his boys drift into unskilled labour. Except for meat and blitter, prices and rentals are a great deal higher than they are in England. New Zealand, at present, is no place for a retired man with an income of from £SOO to £IOOO a year, especially if ho has a family.”

The correspondent quotes a statement made by the Minister of Agriculture in New Zealand, and he refers to a statement made at the annual meeting of the Auckland Employers’ Federation relative to the Apprentice?' Act, the passage quoted runn|n eEmployers were becoming less ready to train lads, hundreds of whom, after leaving school each year had not the slightest chance of following their trade bent. It is scandalous and wicket that this nnsition should exist. We don’t know where it will end. It is a hoy's birthright to learn the trade of hi? choice.”