"POOR AND FORGOTTEN"

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 59, 6 September 1939, Page 8

"POOR AND FORGOTTEN"

NAZI VIEW OF NEW ZEALAND FIFTH OF 200,000 PEOPLE HAVE T.B. Though Nazi Germany maintained a consulate in Wellington this did ndt prevent some enthusiastic Nazi journalist from manifesting his ignorance and Anglophobia in the columns of a Berlin newspaper the B.V.Z. Abendausgabe. The article is entitled "The chase after floating millions; New Zealand England's step-child,'' and deals with a "New Zealand gold-digger, Charles Edwards, who has invented a new system of gold digging by diving and working at the bottom of New Zealand rivers. "Rightly New Zealand is known as the step_child of England,"' says the writer. "This mighty island a short distance from the American coast is England's oldest colony. By later acquisitions this possession became too uninteresting to mighty Albion. To explore New Zealand would have required money and labour. Therefore, it was thought sufficient to appoint a' Governor for the island to exploit the same as much as possible. "INHABITANTS DEGENERATED" "The inhabitants degenerated there after as much as the island itself. The British admit this quite openly nowadays in their newspapers. Of the 20t>,000 inhabitants of New Zealand, about one-fifth arc suffering of T.B. They have no doctor within reach if thev live on the coast and not in the miserable capital of the island. To travel there is impossible? for them, as they cannot even afford the much less the doctor's fee. "Approximately half of the working population is unemployed. Unemployment relief is pitful, more than pftiful. The population of New Zealand is permanently starved in the truest sense of the word. The task of the Governor is nowadays solely, as the British say themselves, to pre. vent the inhabitants gathering in associations,, as this would result in, a bloody rebellion. IS NOT POOR. "In spite of all this the gigantic island is not poor. Two million people might find profitable work and a satisfactory existence on it. The fivers contain gold. ' In various .regions of the country minerals and coal are found. The great forests could supply timber continuously, if exploited properly,. But to remedy these conditions the British Government refuses to supply the money. "It costs the British Government too much to poke its nose into things •which don't concern it ? and to be burned again and again—so that it has not a penny left for its oldest colony." Thus writes very clearly a British journalist. 'Let us British hope that we do not live to experience a sad shock some future day in this corner of the world.' We have nothing to add to this British reflection. "But ther® are always individuals who know how to help themselves. To 'these belongs the twenty-thr ?e year old Charles Edwards, whose work in the New Zealand rivers has caused a real sensation. For this young man, as the first from the poor, despised and forgotten country, has Without assistance acquired a fortune of millions.'' TOO EXPENSIVE. The writer then explains that tVe, gold in New Zealand rivers is known but that exploitation with machinery has been declared too expensive and was therefore abandoned. The writer adds that the wild country, which is not crossed by any ronds and possesses only a sing'e railway line with trains running twice weekly, thus remains unexplored and forgotten by England. After giving a technical description of Edwards' orocedurc of diving and working at the bottom of the river In a strong current to wash oul the gold the author of the fantastic \ltor3~ concludes it by asserting that Fid wards at present is the only man, v vho in England's "forgotten island colony'" really earns more than '.ir; needs for his daily existence. The New Zealand press the other day carried n reply from Mr Edward■: "idiculing this absurd . hotch-potch of 'uinkum. The only truth in the -tory is that some months ago Mr Edwards sa'd tha't h? intended to Ti-Tke an attempt to work certain Wcstiand gold-bearing streams wi;h aid of a diving dress.