BOTHER ENGLAND!”

Hokitika Guardian, 24 February 1923, Page 4

BOTHER ENGLAND!”

| (By Sir William Beach lln 11ms. ) "Oh. bother Kiighuid!" So said Mrs pjcklcs, late of Lancashire, who | expressed her place of origin in her i speech, her vigour, her hospitality, am. i her directness of comment. ! I had asked her whether she meant to revisit her birthplace and scai cji ■ ( .\'| ected quite -o direct a negate, o. ; She “bothered" Kngland not from my disloyalty to her First home, hut hecause she was totally absorbed in her now. [,et me boil down the Pickle-' family history. , Mi and Mrs Pickles arrived in ! cm Australia, poor in purse, hut rich jin hope. He too!.: work on the inilj way :md aftci a few ye. rs v»s ebY j to buy a piece of land near Kagle Hdl | in the south, and to build himselt a j horn ■ Of *II to whii hhe :o:d !: ■l' soils attend. One ol them showed mo a singh’ apricot tree that lest year yield limit to the value ol £•! IBs. Behind the ale 2,500 acres of uncleared or sei.: : -"Va •• I land, comprising the hulk, h’ t 110; as yet the (duel moiiev-m '' c 1 e,i *o} the Pickles estate. f>, ! . .... : .. jiior- tec-s are '‘ringharked" t*v the end of fh ir complete dcstrm t ion. more merino sheep pick up li, leg in this aura tivc park. The le d A -a rs s in vain-. ■ nth as to capital. ; "d in the pr-vision o. income, with eve " year's possession by this landed family. People in Ftigland "ill ask how ill the world m immigrant without a shilling so soot, became ■: landed proprietor of broad eovs. The am- < - i- --i-i> ! • The most he paid for nn •■.<: Pen of tlw land -which is freehol ! in- 10 • an aero and he was allowed been ■.<, 'on as lie wished to pay it in !

Alost of it was a great deal cheaper than that. Any good. hard-working man can get an advance from the agricultural bank, if he i.s doing anything that improves the land. The loan is specialjy ear-mat kedi for his specific purpose: lor clearing land, for planting j Iruit trees; for buying stock, for build- 1 ing a house. ] Borrowing in Western Australia does anything but ‘'dull the edge of bus- j bnmlry.’’ It wonderfully sharpens the axe and the coulter. One run understand why Airs Pickles “bothered” England. She lives in a roomy bungalow, looking over a fair landscape. She has many neighbours. The climate is not cold in winter or very hot in summer, due rainfall is plentiful and irrigation quite unnecessary. She can, and will, supply herself ail the year round with almost all that her cupboards require; fruit, including grapes and sultanas and currants meat and dairy produce. She is well-to-do and her three sons have a certain prospect of independence. ’file day after visiting the pickles' estate I travelled farther south to Denmark, so called because a prosperous dairying community was established there not long since, partly thiough imitation of Danish methods. i met there another Lancashire family, Hie Todds, who have carved out ol the forest a charming and rich dait'v farm, earning many head of cows, mostly Jerseys or cross-bred Jerseys. It will lie in farmers’ eyes the best witness to the mildness of the climate that everywhere Jerseys are the favourite breed and are kept in the "pen all the yea r nnind. The men of whom I wiite have worked very hard, and have had much more to endure than the State-aided group settlers now coming over. But they too had less hardship to suffer than \et earlier pioneers. AVe asked the way ol one line old long-bearded man, who came out m the early sixties. Before he achieved liu.d success he lived ill the hollow elf a great karri free where his eleven children were all horn and bred. Such pioneerin': experiences are over hut tie cheap. land and wide unharvested spaces still remain. There they are, ready lor anyone who will take U'olll lip.