DRIVEN OUT OF NEW ZEALAND.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 8206, 31 July 1905, Page 3

DRIVEN OUT OF NEW ZEALAND.

Result of Vexatious Legislation

rLONDON CORRESPONDENT.!

London 7 , June 9

A gentleman who holds a recognised position in New Zealand, and who is now on a visit to the Mother Country, called on me a day or two ago to express his views of the controversy which took place recently in The Times between Mr W. P. Reeves and Mr Ewart Grogan, on the question whether or not there was any material exodus from New Zealand to the Argentine. My visiter held strongly' the opinion that there was such an exodus, and, moreover, he advanced a number of reasons why such should be the case. " There can be no doubt whatever," he said, " that people are baing steadily driven out of the Colony by the policy and legislation of the Seddon Government. Life is becoming unbearable out there. At every turn you find yourself assailed by some new and vexatious restriction of your liberty, not merely in respect of business, but also in your private and social life. "Wherever any hampering regulation can be brought to bear upon the course of action either of individuals or of firms or companies, this appears invariably to be done. Men nowadays not only are debarred from carrying on their business in peace and quietness, and from making their own arrangements with their workmen, but they cannot even shake themselves free from these trammels when they go home to the bosom of their families. Right and left they are interfered with, particularly as regards their relations with their servants. They are not allowed to be taken ill. after a certain hour in the evening, the penalty being that should this happen they cannot obtain any medicine. If they fly to their clubs for refuge, it is with a knowledge that at a relatively early hour at night they will be spanked and put to bed like small children. What with all these annoyances and the everlasting interference with trade and commerce, and between capital and labour, New Zealand is rapidly becoming a most excellent country to live out of; and so, naturally, people leave it. Hitherto it has had a great good fortune in enjoying a long period of unexampled prosperity, which, of course, is claimed by the Seddon Government as due to its policy and administration, but with which Mr Seddon and his colleagues had in reality no more to do than the Emperor of Russia or the Sultan of Turkey. It would be much truer to say that New Zealand has prospered in spite of them than as the result of anything they have done, and, judging from the cordial reception of the vigorous exposition lately made by Mr Massey, I am inclined to indulge in the hope that their riegn is nearing

its close.'

" There is another point that has struck me," my visitor went on to say. ' In looking through the Year-books it has appeared to me that the returns are carefully made up in such periods as will show the best results for the present time, in comparison with former periods. This occurs in various ways,

and to take one instance, where there has been a falling off latterly, a longer period is taken as a basis of comparison, and so the better results of previous years are lumped with those of more recent times, and an average struck of the whole. This method is of course very convenient for the purposes of those who wish to make out that the Scddon regime has been purely and vastly beneficial to the Colony, but it assuredly does not enable this position to be fairly and thoroughly tested. So far as I can ascertain, with the materials at my disposal, if a really fair comparative return were made, it would show the progress of New Zealand to have been of a distinctly erratic character, and by no means the persistent advance in all respects that it is asserted by the present Government to be."