AS OTHERS SEE US.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 604, 1 February 1921, Page 5

AS OTHERS SEE US.

AN AUSTRALIAN’S OPINION. “I have been going through this country for two months, and consider it the best little country on the face of the earth,” said Mr. E. FilpotCrowther, of New South Wales, to a Christchurch Press reporter. “I think it is simply marvellous what this country has done in the short time it has been colonised. If half as much had been done in America with a handful of people as you have done with your handful of people the Americans might talk. Your roads, railway towns, and harbours are a credit to the country., The great feature of New Zealand is decentralisation. Everywhere you have prosperous little towns with prosperous hinterlands—such things as we have been praying for in Australia, One) of the planks of the Progressive Party (to which I belong) is decentralisation. You have got it. I would like to put a big bomb under Sydney and make six towns out of it.” continued Mr. Crowther. “There are about 130,000 on the land in NJS.W., and the rest are in the cities. The people on the land have to carryl on their backs the burden of the rest of the population. It is a calamity. Australia is a grand country, but it is being wrongly run. Australia must get on the land. Instead of bringing her millions into the cities she should spend her millions on development of land. If she sold nine-tenths of her racecourses and picture shows and put the proceeds into development of the land she would do a wise thing.