This is Sultry

Southland Times, Issue 12771, 2 December 1893, Page 3

This is Sultry

An anonymous writer in the Field throws out a strong warning to farmers who think of emigrating to New Zealand. He has had twelve years’ experience as a successful farmer, and his declared object is to ** warn farmers not to be misled by the colonising agents, who, in professing to be the friends of the poor farmer, are far more interested in disposing of the large areas of land which now lie as ah incubus on the banks and loan oompanies, greatly aggravated by the crushing graduated Land Tax. A British farmer landing in New Zealand with his family, and a few hundred pounds, but without the necessary colonial experience, will most surely live to regret leaving the Old Country. Suppose he lands in Auckland. He will have to find a house, food, and fuel at a cost of L2 to L 3 a week, until he can look over the offered land, perhaps 150 miles away, and by the time he has satisfied himself his capital has considerably diminished ere disappointment and failure begin. . . , Although our population is only that of an ordinary English business town, we have a great deal of legislation, and many well-paid so-called legislators and Government employes, as becomes the followers of George and Bellamy. Instead of a dozen levelheaded men who could and would manage the whole business, we have enough men and machinery to run a nation as large as England. But there is money in it. The present Ministry, whose leader is the leathern-lunged ‘Dick’ Seddon, went into power under promise of cutting down expenditure, and failed not to raise their own and the members’ payments as soon as they got in, and there is talk of another rise later on. Spoils to the victors I However, we are no worse than the Yankees ; and, like them, our best men hold aloof from politics, but do much good to the community as unpaid members of county councils and land boards. Many of my fellow colonists would strongly object to my showing the intending emigrant farmers the rocks ahead. They would say ‘ Let them come and find it out for themselves, as others have ; we require money and population? I amfirstanEnglishfarmer.theonlyson of a long line of octogenarian tenant farmers, and I feel that it is my duty to warn men who have some years’ experience of the dear Old Country, and probably families of young children, not to leave home unless they have brothers here to care for and direct them. Thousands of men during the laud boom, the offspring of the huge borrowing and squandering policy of Sir Julius Vogel’s Ministry, bought up far more land than they could profitably occupy, much of which would be dear at a gift. These broad acres must be got rid of by hook or crook, and many hooks and crooks have been invented to secure rhe unwary. I think I know most of them. One only need here be mentioned as a sample. A land agent took me over an estate which was for sale in the North Island. There were on it a few hungry-looking calves roaming at will, the only cultivated land being a small field, in which grass was just coming up. This was shown to me as a fair sample of what the soil could produce when improved by cultivation. Finding a Government engineer laying out roads close by, I stole a private interview, and gathered from him that, along with the grass seeds, half a ton of finely powdered bones had been sown per acre. I escaped ; but the next man was hooked.”