AN INTERESTING TOUR.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXII, Issue 12844, 29 November 1905, Page 6

AN INTERESTING TOUR.

"HOME" VIA CANADA. A. representative of the " Herald" met Mr and Mrs William Evans in the express on their return to Timaru on Monday, and Mr Evans gave him a sketch of their tour through Canada and Great Britain, which our readers will find interesting. They. left Timaru on May 13th last, by j the Vancouver line, calling at Fiji, Hull j Island and Honolulu, and made a. halt j at where they met an old Ti- i snaruvian, Mr Hamersley, who is doing nv-ell, and Mr Moss Jonas's daughter and son-in-law, Mr and Mrs Goldstem. (In. London,.they met many New Zealanders. At New York they came across Mr Ballantyiie, of Christchurch; at the Dublin horse show Mr Kernohan; at the Lakes of KilJarney, Mr James Wilson, of Ailandale, and Jus daughter.) .. Mr old friends will be pleased to know that he some time back secured a nice block of valuable. lan<F across the estuary from Vancouver,, this block being situated something similar, say, to the North Shore from Auckland. He has also floated a company -and purchased a very large ferry boat to give access to the property, and has up about 200 acres into a township. These sections ape seelling readily at a good profit, and some nice dwellings and business places are being erected. Mr Hamersley has also led the way by building a very nice two-storied villa for iimself. and family. Mr and Mrs Evans jspent a,- very - pleasant ..afternoon looking ever the property,. and had a 1 long chat trithl Mr and Mrs Hamersley about old times in Timaru. They crossed Ainercia by ±he Canadian .Pacific railway, to Toronto, breaking their journey for a few days at .several cities on the way. The C.P.R. is an excellent line, of 4ft B£in gauge, well -equipped and well managed. The trains , -do not run so fast as in the States; -but ■they reiy seldom indeed- have any. accidents which is more than can be 6aid ,of the United States lines. Mr Evans was- pleased -with the signs of vigour and progress everywhere in Canada, but especially in Van--eoiiver and Winnepeg. Other towns visited were Toronto) Montreal, Ottawa, Niagara,/ Buffalo, New York. The railway journey -was* a tiring one in the hot summer weather.

New York was very hot- during their visit; there were numerous deaths of men and also of librses,- from •sunstroke. The streets were oppressively hot at eight as well as by day, the brick buildings absorbing heat from'the sun during the day and giving it out again at night. One of the most curious sights Sir Evans" saw wis oafS midnight ride on. the cars, to see the crowds of women and children sitting os the kerbing trying to get a breath of cooler air than they could find indoors. The tall buildings of New York are recalled as aifiong the chief sights of the tour. Mr Evans mounted by swift electric lift to the -summit of the Hanover Bank building of 22 stories. At the basei aire two safes, -each of whose doors weighs 33 tons. On the 21st'story is a large kitchen, and dining rooms where luncheon is provided daily for the staff. The roof is flat, covered with' a mosaic o! tiles, and surrounded by a rail-ing,-from which in fine weather *a magnificent view is had of the "city. They crossed the Atlantic from New York in the giant Umbria and had a very fine passage. Indeed the whole of their voyaging : was fortunate in that respect, for not till they neared West Australia on their return did they experience any really rough weather. A few days before they were steaming on the-Great Lakes, Huron and Superior, there had been a. storm-in which a vessel was wrecked, but during their trips on the lakes the water was as smooth as glass. They arrived in (Lbn--don on the 16th July, and after remaining "there a few weeks visited Edinburgh, Glasgow, -the Highlands, Dublin' and its horse show, the. Lakes of Killarney, Belfast and Harland and Wolf's shipbuilding yards;' Liverpool, Manchester and several surrounding manufacturing towns, and they -saw all they could, did as much sight-see-ing as they could—until Mr Evans was laid "ap in London for six weeks by & chill, and had to go under the doctor's hands, and by bis advice they cut France and Germany out of their programme. In London some of the leading/papers make a point of interviewing returned-co-lonists, arid some of the stuff they publish is a long way off the truth; consequently , though he received two requests for interviews,' he avoided - giving any. Everybody in America and Great -Britain seemed to be very busy, therefore,'-though "lie had -a budget of letters of introduction, from the Premier 'and others, he m&do use of only three' of them altogether. He found everybody very. friendly, but ioo irasy to give up half a day to enterta-in a stranger and show him; round, as wonld -be done in this colony. Thev would • be Tery cordial, and ask one to luncheon -with "theni, an <l having done that, they had done a3l_ that their customary hospitality re--qmred. They took it as a matter of course that the visitor would not expect .any *nore than that. A few old New Z£alanders m London, and relatives of course; did much more for them. London is "the "ty . f° r sights, as with a population of six millions within a short radius it must be. and one would need to have a cotm>e : o< years for sight-seeing to see them all. Or the top of a 'bus is the most romforfable ray of see : ng the streets of London, be -cause the streets are so narrow, the traffic so dense that one can see very little froxr the pavement London streets would be

i impassable if. the traffic was not splendidly ' controlled by policemen. A great siglit is a run down tie river on a steamer, to see banks «lined with vessels, little and big, for miles. : Manchester also is a magnificent city, and a great business centre, with seven to eight millions of pep-ple within a radius of 25 miles (this would include Liverpool). But one can see very little of Manchester at a time, for the smoke of factory chimneys. And the smoke arid/other conditions of life there are not conducive -to the growth of a healthy people. The Manchester people seem all undersized; 'and there are a great many cripples to be seen in the streets. As a city it- is very fine. One of -the largest hot-els in the United Kingdom has just been built at Manchester. Hotels, ■by the way, are much more expensive in both American and English-cities, than in New Zealand; but they are not a bit more "comfortable. And everywhere at the swell hotels the menus are in French and nearly all - the waiters are German.. The tipping system-that prevails everywhere is a great nuisance to a colonial, who is not used to it. American hotels are still worse, •there are so i-many extras-"—'■ half a dollar for a. bath,' instanced Mrs Evans. .The subject of harbours was raised, and Mr Evans' constant interest in all pert-aiu-ing thereto.;'v.Mr.-Evans called at some of the shipping, .offices ,in London and was pleased to ixiid that-' the steamer had talked a good deal to their employers I about the new breakwater at Timam, and! the great benefit it had been and would be to the port. Wherever he went, he took i every opportunity of looking into harbour construction and dredging. • Of harbour con-, struction he did -not see many .examples in progress, but at ; . Colombo - and at Naples he "saw rubble' breakwaters in.- hand. At neither place had they such good stone to work with as we have at Timaru. He paid a great deal of ; attention to dredging and. dredges/and was convinced that the dredge in common use in. Canada on the lake harbours, in the rivers, and' oa the river bars—is. the best type for. all purposes. -In Canada they have discarded the bucket I (ladder) dredge for the spoon, scoop, or' shovel, dredge, in -which a big scoop lifts from 5 tons in the smaller to 'l2 tons in the larger, at each lift. All the dredges of this type that he saw, discharge into punts, so-' that l the dredge may be continually lifting, and a small tow-boat takes the loaded punt to the discharging ground. Wlien in Scotland he called on Lobnitz and Company, and was shown over their works. He inquired if they made any dredges of the Canadian type, and was told that- they knew nothing of them. He asked the Canadian builders to send a- full specification to the Harbour Hoard. Mr' Evans caw a number of these dredges at work, some of them doing just such work, as is required at Tiinaru; he was assured that they will work in any. roughness of-water tha't any other kind of dredge can work in; and he believed they were "the .cheapest and most, effective tools of the kind in the world.. The tendency to-day was in the direction of bigger isteamers, and harbour outhorities j were endeavouring to keep up with the demand for deeper water; those that ..did not do so must be content to see their ports take a second, rank.

The question of - industries being mooted led Mr Evans to speak of his- visit to one of the Massey-Harris agricultural implement factories, a. huge place employing 3600 men, a*d the manager, Mr Jones, gave hinj an insight into their business methods. He suggested to Mr Jones the opening of. a factory in the colony, to save packing and freight, and Mr Jones' said they had considered, it and concluded that it would not : pay, under colonial labour conditions. "We would not be our own masters; the men would dictate to us too much, and we could not stand that," said Mr Jones. "We have no union men in our employ, and whenever we have any difficulty, we meet the men .and talk the matter over,, settle all difficulties amicably, and tlic men are well satisficd-"." The men work ten hours a, day; or -more if heeded, and they are paid according ti their capacity. They are encouraged to work with their heads as well as with their hands, and if any of fhem invents an improvement- that seems likely to be worth anything* the firm will test it-. They now hold, Mr Jones said, and work a number of patents for inventions made by employees, for the inventors' benefit as well as their owns

I Talking of machinery naturaliy led to talk about electricity, and Mr. Evans said he was much impressed by the extent to Xhich _ the available water powers, are being hjffnessed : in America, to furnish elec--tricity. _ An enormous quantity of water •> taken out .of., Niagara Falls for this :JP ur P£?e, ;and : "Jl)ig manufacturing cities, ore > V'.-up- . on; • each . side of the river, ifeides'- which'; Electricity is carried away to towns 30 jniles away. , One manufac- |. toirer-- at that distance told him that he wasoisirig 2000 horse power night and day and his business was so growing with the cheapness of the power that he would want 1000 more-: ■; Mrs Evans added that they saw an electrical - exhibition in' London where there were even electric cooking stoves. . ZealanderN goes Home without makirtg inquiry about the frozen meat trade and Mr Evans was not likely to be an exception. He found that in 'London the ISew Zealand meat is given a fair chance, but things are very different in some at least of the provincial towns. Mr an 4' Mrs Evans stayed for some time with Dr Brown, a retired medical man at Colchesfer (a brother of Mrs Jas. Granger, of Timaru) and having some mutton ther°, Mr Evans asked whether it was " Canterbury " or not. " Dear me, no!' said Mrs E-rcwc,

"we would not -nse it,; even the servants won't eat it." Dr Brown offered to show him the shop where " Canterbury mutton was sold, and they went; He saw hanging' up some scraggy mutton full of black streaks, and over it p, ticket "Canterbury mutton." It had never seen Canterbury*; might have been Argentine; and he was about, to go into the shop and give the owner a piece of his mind, but thought better of it-; it was not likely to do anv good. In the bigger cities the dealers were more careful, as some of them had been prosecuted, but in the smaller inland towns inferior rubbish is fraudulently substituted for New Zealand meat. What of Mr Chamberlain. It struck Mr Evans as very curious that the politicians at Home were talking one way and the business people were talking another. it does not seem sensible to talk about free trade, when the Germans and Americans are piling in their surplus goods, while in London thousands of workers were walking about in processions, with banners ! ' \Ve have got no work to do," on them. ' He saw several such, processions; and families stand beside the footpaths with tickets on the man—" I am. out of work," and the like. It is difficult to imderstand the point of view of the politicians. " What is the good," saked Mi' Evans, '' what is t]ie good of having freetrade in food if the people have no money to buy ifc with, because other people are dumping goods into tlis country und putting the people out -of /work?" - Botli Mr and Mrs Evans thoroughly enjoyed the trip on the whole, though now and then they-had some tiring and trying experiences of travel, especially in the train journeys in America in the hot season, and both regret that Mr Evans' unfortunate illness robbed them of much of the opportunity the time of their stay in .London should have given them to see more of the sights of that great city. . „