Friendly Criticism.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20281, 16 April 1934, Page 6

Friendly Criticism.

Home Again

Engineer Back After 20 Years. A CHRISTCHURCH BOY, who left a job x in the Addington Workshops two decades ago and went adventuring, has returned to Christchurch with a notable reputation as an engineer. He is Mr R. W. Newton, who is at present on a leisurely holiday tour of the Dominion. He is staying with his brother, Mr H. Newton, of Sheldon Street, Christchurch. Mr Newton now holds the post of manager of a Shell Oil Company refinery in the West Indies. When asked his opinioq of the changes that he saw in New' Zealand, Mr Newton said that it was difficult to class this country. “ You depend so much on cows and sheep, and everyone seems to live off their backs. “ You are used to doing things for yourselves here,” said Mr Newton in an interview yesterday, “ and it is appreciated w'hen you go outside and take a job. There is always a position for a dependable man with a little initiative.” The roads of New Zealand, in Mr Newton’s opinion, have shown great improvement over the past few years. It was even questionable, he thought, whether or not the country should scrap all railroads, which in such a country were necessarily a hard and costly proposition, and rely on road and sea transport. Most parts of the country had a reasonably near port, and sea transport was the cheapest of all. Railroads and Poker. “ I see you have started railroads and had to abandon them,” he commented. “ That is bad business. Building railroads is like a poker game. There is »the possibility of a loss, but you have to calculate that before you start, and then, if you go in, go in to complete the w'hole job. There would be little business if the prospect of a few bad years held up all expansion.” For the rest, Mr Newton had a few friendly criticisms for his native land, but c-nly those, he pointed out, that resulted naturally from its isolation. New Zealanders did not seem to hurry. If they saw anyone else hurrying, they would just shrug their shoulders and let him past. “ But make no mistake,” he added, “ it is a wonderful country. I have seen more of it on this visit than I ever did. before I left originally, and that is my opinion. “ You should resign yourselves to the fact that you cannot get a big manufacturing trade but just manufacture for your own market. You have some raw materials, but anything you have to export must go a long way before it gets past Mexico and the Latin American countries, and they have such vast resources of all forms of raw wealth. The Chinese and Asiatic market must have its limitations for you, as the average Chinese lives a week on what you would want for a couple of pounds of butter, but your agricultural products compare with anything else in the world, and the only drawback in that connection is the distance away from the great markets.”