MAORIS ABROAD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19846, 21 May 1927, Page 11

MAORIS ABROAD

LEARNING AGRICULTURE HAWKESBURY COLLEGE VISITED. Visiting the Hawkesbury Agricultural College, in New South Wales, recently, in company with Mr E. D. McLennan, M.P., Mr J. T. Young, a director of the New Zealand Dairy Association, was interested to find five Maori students there. Both Mr Young and the member for Franklin were much impressed with their visit to Hawkesbury, which they considered splendidly equipped. Mr Young, however, who is a brother of the Health Minister, thought that New Zealanders could gain little practical advantage in farming experience by going abroad, when such excellent facilities were provided in their own country. Although he did not have an opportunity of speaking with the young Maoris, he’ understood that their expenses at Hawkesbury College were paid for from one of their own accumulated funds. A noticeable absence of English grasses was noted by Mr Young in New South Wales. He also considered that farming conditions in the Australian mother State were totally different to those prevailing in New Zealand. The position of the dairy farmer in New South Wales seemed to be highly satisfactory, said Mr Young, and conditions generally appeared to be flourishing. ‘J But the farmer over there seems to have a very wrong idea of New Zealand conditions. He imagines that we are passing through a particularly bad period of depression, and attributes much of this to our experience of dairy control and that kind of thing,” he said. “These reports want correcting.” As a matter of fact, both Mr McLennan and Mr Young, in common with other New Zealanders, found far too little news of the Dominion in the Australian papers. “Wo get any amount of Australian news here,” remarked Mr Young, “but it is a very different story on the other side. I do think we could do with a little more publicity in Australia.”