DEPARTING FARMERS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 562, 17 July 1909, Page 8

DEPARTING FARMERS.

HE. MACKENZIE CAN'SEE NO EXODUS,

'■■ According to a Press Association telegram from Christchurch,. tho Hon. T. Mackenzie, Minister for Agriculture* does not regard in a very serious light the statements made ■recently .'that New. Zealand .farmers are migrating in large numbers to Australia. He told a reporter yesterday that, as far as lie know, the farmers who wore leaving the Dominion for the , most part were men who had .done remarkably well here, and who saw an opportunity in. Queensland for making investments which, if seasons were good, would give them splendid returns. "I do not at all regard tho position as an exodus of fanners," he said. "It rather .points to the fact that there is such an accumulation of internal capital, as I might Bay, that it has 'enabled people to make investments in undertakings j n o thor countries. They are .not all successful. Another complexion is placed on tho question by the circumstances of a gentleman I knew. Ho struggled on Queensland farms and hoped against hope for four or five years, and finally, owing to drought, lost his two properties _and really his own life.' The.following season proved to be a good one, and money is now flowing into those who have his properties. It is a gamble, and it is only thoso who can afford to gamble who should enter into tho game. There does riot seem to be anything much in the cry of the now exodus. That at anyrate is my opinion."