HOMEWARD BOUND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26540, 15 August 1947, Page 8

HOMEWARD BOUND

IMMIGRANT FAMILY DISAPPOINTMENT WITH THE DOMINION UNFORTUNATE EXPERIENCE Daily Times Service AUCKLAND, Aug. 1.Aftex spending half his life's savings in emigrating to New Zealand and searching fruitlessly for a home, a disillusioned' Yorkshire bootmaker, Mr S. A. Jackson, with his wife and two sons, is returning to Britain in the liner Rangitiki to-morrow. In two months in the Dominion they claim to have met only disappointments, and the experience cost them £IOOO. An ex-soldier of the Imperial Army, who served in the First World War and later* spent four- years in the merchant service, Mr Jackson was in business as a bootmaker in Hull when the war ended. He was attracted by the possibility of emigrating to New Zealand. “ I felt I had 20 years of hard work left in me," he said. “More important, I wanted to give my two boys a start in life that I did not have." Publicity in England From brochures supplied by New Zealand House in London, he had gained the impression that the Dominion offered a higher standard of living than Britain, that there were more motor cars than almost ■, anywhere else, that there, were*" bags of food." that wages were “ terrifically high,” and that the children had far better opportunities. “We arrived in New Zealand by the Rangitiki on June 16 with the idea of getting a few acres of land on which the two boys could make a living after going to an agricultural college," Mr Jackson explained. “Both of them had a good grammar school education in England, and had won scholarships. I thought I would be able to get a property in going order for them to take over.” Mr Jackson said he was told that Hawke’s Bay was the ideal place for a fruit farm. For weeks he had sought a small holding in this district, but the only prospect had been two acres of land on the outskirts of Hastings. The price was £2300. The immigrants transferred their search for a farm to a quest for a home. A firm of land agents in Hastings showed them one house available at the Land Sales Court price of £1550. They were interested until they learned that a condition of the sale was the purchase for an additional £7OO of what Mr Jackson described as,a few threadbare sticks of furniture. Prices Above Court .Figures When, as an alternative, they investigated a section at Havelock North they were told by an agent that they would have to pay £7O above the court figure. Other similar instances were quoted by Mr Jackson. Travelling in a car with a caravan, the family had covered 1500 miles in search of a house of a property they could rent or buy within their means. They had known in Britain that rental houses were difficult to secure, but the literature supplied to them had suggested that an immigrant could build his home for 35s a foot. They had discovered that £3OOO would be a more appropriate figure. Then, when they had thought of erecting a home by their own labour, they found that materials could not be obtained from merchants. The impossibility of getting a home at a reasonable price was not the s sole cause of Mr Jackson’s disappointment. He said the wages were not as .high as had been represented in Britain For a bootmaker the award wage in New Zealand was only £6 13s a week, less about 10s in tax, whereas a man iji the same trade in Britain could command from £8 to £l2. Costs of living were higher than in Britain, and some of the dwellings he had seen while looking for a house were worse than the slums of Manchester.