TOUR BY FARMERS

Southland Times, Issue 23445, 28 February 1938, Page 5

TOUR BY FARMERS

AUSTRALIANS ARRIVE IN INVERCARGILL The party of Australian farmers which has been touring New Zealand on an education and good-will visit arrived in Invercargill from Queenstown yesterday afternoon. All of the visitors are from South Australia, with the exception of one Victorian. During their three weeks’ stay in New Zealand they have visited many places of interest in both the North and South Islands. They speak highly of the hospitality of their New Zealand hosts. Invercargill is the last place in the itinerary of the visitors. Today they will visit Mr A. S. Holms’s farm at Waimahaka and this evening they will board the Maunganui at Bluff for Melbourne.

The tour was really a reciprocal one and was started in the first place to enable farmers from New Zealand and Australia to meet each other and have the opportunity of interchanging ideas, said Mr G. D. Pryor, an officer of tire South Australian Tourist Bureau, Adelaide, who is travelling with tire party. The value of such tours was fully realized and they were welcomed by the Government of South Australia. Trade, from practically every aspect, was encouraged between New Zealand and the Commonwealth, and a factor which was not to be lost sight of was the impression of a country gained by a visitor. The present tour was planned primarily as a holiday visit, but there was added interest in the fact that the various farmers’ organizations in New Zealand had arranged for the visitors to inspect farms and places of interest. It was undoubtedly one of the best means of bringing the people of the farming communities of the two countries together so that they could discuss their problems and contrast the working of similar industries. Everything that was possible to be done to make the tour a success had been done by the people of New Zealand, said Mr Pryor. The hospitality made the visit a happy one and from the remarks of members of his party he could say that when the next party of New Zealanders went to South Australia in July—already arrangements were in hand—an attempt would be made to return the hospitality.

“Our people are anxious that they should be privileged to show the New Zealand farmer the way they do their farming, and at the same time return some of the kindnesses which have been extended on this tour,” he added. “They are going away with a very good impression of New Zealand and a first-hand knowledge of the country and its scenic attractions. For my part I can say we have been privileged to gain more knowledge of New Zealand than the average or ordinary tourist.”