AS OTHERS SEE US

Otago Witness, Issue 3487, 11 January 1921, Page 6

AS OTHERS SEE US

A VISITOR’S IMPRESSIONS. Mr E, Philpot-Crowther, of Sydney, who has been making a tour of investigation through New Zealand, is at present in Dunedin, naving returned from Queenstown and the Lakes district. Mr Crowther is a hydro-electric engineer by profession, but lie is keenly interested in tin land and all that pertains to it. He is a man of wide vision and long views, and speaks with enthusiasm of the future that is possible for New Zealand. A keen observer, lie has travelled far and wide, haa seen much, and evidently thought much, and he talks in an interesting manner of the problems of the day. Mr Crowther’s gospel may be summed up in the cry "Back to the land.” He is contemptuous of any suggestion that New Zealand's “green and pleasant land” should be turned into an industrial country, and points to the impossibility of competing with Europe or America in manufacturing. His is a vision of an agricultural land —a nation of farmers, who will enlist the aid of science in growing the world’s food, and into whose lives the modern facilities of telephone, motor cars, phonographs, community ldnemas, and books will bring brightness and mental recreation. And he thinks that New Zealand could secure the class of man she wants in thousands from the Old World —intelligent men, with enterprise and the will to work, like the sturdy pioneers who founded this country. “On© of the things that inis impressed me most in travelling through New Zealand,” said Mr Crowther, “is the tragedy oi your forests, especially the failure of the native forests to regenerate. This is a thing to which you will have to give deep study. You owe it to the world to conserve that wonderful timber. Other things that struck me were the necessity for increased population in the country districts, especially on the land, for the utilisation of your hydroelectric resources, for irrigation . and reafforestation. “To get population you will have to develop a very generous immigration policy. I would suggest some system by which a man who agreed to work for a farmer, or farmers, for, say, three years, would be granted a minimum of 60 acres free, on condition that he saved £1 a week during that time. By then he should have mastered the weather and farming conditions of this country. If he agreed to work five years 1 would give him 160 acres, under proper safeguards as to selling and mortgaging. lie would then have £260, plus interest, and the free lain! to start with.” Mr Crowther seems to be deiiglited with Now Zealand, and waxes enthusiastic about our well-kept towns. “Ihere is nothing like it in Australia,” he said, talking at the time of Wanganui, as a sample of New Zealand’s provincial centres. He admires the solidity of our buildings and towns. “You seem to build for the future, to live with some thought for those coming after you.” And he admires our scenery. “Nowhere else under God’s sun,” said he, “will you find such variety. Your mountains are as grand as those of Switzerland, and your glaciers would stand comparison with those of any other countries. Arid the beauty of your lakes! Not one, but dozens of them.” Mr Crowther is no believer in leaning on the Government to supply all wants and piling up public debt, lie believes in individual enterprise, and cannot understand why farmers, sa w millers, and such like, and municipalities should fold their hands and wait for expensive Government hydro-elec-tric schemes when there is still some timber left not burned, as lie put it. Witlj breast wheels and second-hand dynamos ho would extract 40 to 45 per cent, of the power of the streams, lie does not see why country industries should burn coal willi streams adjacent, as they often are. Mr Crowther inspected the Cob ridge development, and intends to visit Waipori. He is a great believer in cc operation among the primary producers, and, as one with experience of the industry in New South Wales, speaks of the importance to New Zealand fruitgrowers of uniting in one organisation to protect tlieir interests and attend to their buying and selling. He has discussed with the Prime Minister the ravages of lire blight in the North Island, and strongly advocates the destruction ox every affected tree and orchard as the only means of stamping out the disease.