NEW ZEALAND IS NO LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 167, 22 July 1946, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND IS NO LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

AMERICAN GOES HOME Reed. 8 p.m. San Francisco, July 21 New Zealand is not the land ot opportunity lie believed when he left America to make rfls home in Auckland only last February, said Mr. Robert Baker, according to the Australian Associated Press. Mr. Baker's wife is an Auckland girl, the former Miss Elsie Perkins, living in Dominion Road. They were married while Mr. Baker was stationed in Auckland with an American hospital unit, doth are 21. After their marriage Mr. Baker was transferred to San Francisco and his wife followed later with a baby daughter. Remembering a - B&t>py honeymoon in New which seems to have given all New Zealand a rosy glow in their eyes, Mr. Baker and his wife and baby left for Auckland in January aboard the Monterey. Interviewed when leaving, Mr. Baker said: “It is a young man's land, a new country still growing up. There is much opportunity." After two weeks in Auckland his wife proposed that they return to America as he was hoping she would. Mr. Baker worked in a wholesale firm for nine weeks for £C Ids a week and paid £3 a week lor a room and board, and paid £lO 3s in taxis. Then he worked his way to San Francisco aboard a ship. His wife and baby are due in Auugust. “New Zealand, he says, is a beautiful place for a vacation, but living conditions are dull and not good," he said. “The ordinary New Zealander is without the modern conveniences which are almost a necessity in America. Life in America is so much happier. Down mere life is laid out at bi: th. People there have no great personal ambitions and no dreams." He immediately secured work in San Francisco with an excellent future as an apprentice electroplater His pay is 220 dollars a month, Including 95 dollars’ Government subsidy for veterans.