LAND SEEKERS.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1650, 6 January 1914, Page 6

LAND SEEKERS.

SETTLING IN AUSTRALIA.

A party of Canadian farmers, who are making an excursion to Victoria with a view to taking up land in the irrigation areas, arrived in Sydney recently by tho Niagara. " Mr. Thomas Gray, who has a farm at Thara, British Columbia, said that he had come out to investigate the conditions in Victoria and Australia generally, and ! if ho found that they were as good as had been represented. ho would probably settle in tho country. If ho did decide to mako his homo here, some of his , neighbours in Canada would follow his example. As he had figured it out, Australia had great advantages over Canada in several respects, chief of which was its superior climate. In his part of the country stock had to be fed for six months of the year. That was not necossary here. The returns from tho laud were, he believed, better in Australia, and the marketing facilities greater. In many cases fruit was never picked by orchard'ists because the prices offered gave the grower iio return. Then, again, land was getting altogether too dear. Land for mixed farming ran to from £20 to £30 per acre, while for orchard land sometimes over £100 per acre was paid. Put in a nutshell, tho position seemed to be that land was to be obtained cheaper in Australia than in-Canada, tho returns per acre, wero just as good, and there was the tremendous advantago of a genial climate all the year round, as against the. rigours of tho Canadian winter. "Wo came to Australia," said Mr. 1 , . Golbourn, acting as spokesman for a group of young farmers, "because Western Canada is dead. They have boomed and boomed'it, and now it has just about 'bust.' The poor man hasn'tmuch chanco in Canada, There are too many Russians and other foreigners coming into the country,, and they'ro not the sort ono cares to make his home among. Give mo English-speaking people all tho time." Within the past three weeks Victoria has had just on 130 lsndseckcrs from tlio United States and Canada, tho Niagara's contingent numbering 55, tho Tahiti's 40, and the Sonoma's 34. .