FAVOURED WAIKATO

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 58, Issue 4187, 22 May 1939, Page 4

FAVOURED WAIKATO

AUSTRALIAN VISITORS IMPRESSED. HON. W. E. PARRY’S COMMENT. In the course of a chat at Hamilton on Saturday the Hon. W. E. Parry, Minister of Internal Affairs, referred in complimentary terms to the impressions gained by visitors to the Waikato and comparisons with other parts of the Dominion, and also with Australia. “You have a lot of good land in this territory,” he said. “The Waikato farm lands jumped into further great prominence during the long rainless weeks before the autumn. It was not unusual to hear men from parched areas visiting Parliament House say that the only green paddocks to be seen in their travels were in the Waikato.”

The Minister recounted an incident that recently occurred in his office in Wellington when a local body representative from the North who, _ he said, was a farmer, called at the time two West Australian legislators were making an official visit to Parliament House.

“We have seen much splendid farm land in our travels in New Zealand,” appreciatively remarked one of the legislators, “and an area or two of that in the Waikato would do us on the other side.”

Quickly, said Mr Parry, the local body representative replied, “But New Zealand land in many parts is not at present looking its best because of the drought.” The Australian legislators smiled. “Drought, you call it!” they said in chorus. “Why, the sun’s only kissed the turf; our droughts sometimes last a couple of years; but the stock get along somehow!”