WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 March 1926, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS

AFTER THIRTY YEARS

HON W. REMBER REEVES’S IMPRESSIONS. (Special to “ Guardian.”) WELLINGTON. March Hi. The loading business men of Wellington— over a 'hundred of them —who entertained the Hon' V • Bomber Reeves at luncheon yesterday received good value for their hospitality. Their guest. who was Minister of Education, Minister of .Justice and Minister of Labour in the Seddon Government tip to |x!)(>. and afterwards Agent-General and High Commissioner un to 100 s, had been away from New Zealand for thirty years and bad returned as the -representative ot a threat banking ill-

stitution to refresli, as it were, his personal acquaintance with the land of his, birth and its people, lie bad covered the country from one end to the other, as he toid his hosts yesterday, and had found re,any ol the pleasure; dreams of Iris youth and his early manhood realised beyond his most sanguine expectations. He had diseovert'd New Zealand ulresh after his long sojourn in the Mother Country, and had pronounced it attain, in Ins own estimation, the must beautiful of all the other countries be bad visited during the intervening; years. It filled him not only with hope, he said, but also with pride ai havin'! belonged to such a land. And. belter than all, be had recognised in the men and women arid children of New Zealand the first fruits of their environment in improved physique, better health, enlarged outlook and a rational conscience. His dreams, he repeated with reverence and gratitude, had come true. THE WORKERS.

Mr Reeves, who entered New Zealand polities in ISS7. largely inspired by a desire to improve the relations between the workers and their employers. and during the next seven or eight years did more than any Minister of the Crown had done helore, or has done since, to reconcile the inteiests of Labour and Capital, still remains. in spite of changed associations, the working man’s champion. He bad heard people talking about race decadence. lie said, and some of them ’bad declared that the young folk went about the country looking for a suit, job, but be had heard the same thing fifty year’s ago, and lie was not sure that the young folk then would have find any objection to a suit job il the.\ could only have got one. Rut the difference was that there were very few sinecures them, lie saw no signs of the alleged slackness and idleness. He had seen men at work in all parts of New Zealand, and in very few eases had lie witnessed the faintest sign of reluctance to do their iob. In the exr reptions, inquiry proved that those concerned were not New Zealanders, nor had tbev been brought up in New Zealand. To the spread of education for which he again was largely responsible —A! r Reeves attributed a marked advance in the knowledge and intelligence of the younger generation. LAND AND RRoDFCTIOX.

Rut. perhaps, after all. the most appealing feature of Mr Reeves s delightful after-luncheon admonition was his

allusion to a great national problem which the politicians, economists and producers of ttiis country have persisted in ignoring, lie had travelled rather more than -1.000 miles in New Zealand during the lasi lew months, he told his audience, and was satisfied that so far as the country itself was concerned il was capable ol greatly increased production. The soil and the climate ImLii were highly favourable towards that. end. lie was making allowance for the mountainous and broken areas, for Hie pumice lands and for i 1)0 forests. lint what was wanted, in his opinion, was the more profitable development of the country already occupied. He had been in the Middle Waikato ami I lie Leper Thame's: and

the llauraki country, covering about 000.000 acres, a good deal ol which was first-class land, or could he made so. which was md more than hall as productive as it should be. Tie had

spent six days 1 licit 1 in older to form an opinion a-< to it-; capabilities. ITo bad come to tlio conclusion that, if the land tvcro utilised as it might he. it would oruduce more than double the present output. 'I lieu take the great stretch from Wnitara to I’are. pa ran. mu. Keen there though so much had been done he «;e impressed with its caparify for further development and increased production. Here, beyond all possible doubt, .Mr Reeves put his linger on the crying need iif the Dominion. If this country expects to maintain its prosperity on the continuance of the present abnormal prices alone it is doomed to a hitter awakening. Tills ONLY WAV. Mr I?coves did not leave the subject . • vill l this appeal. He emphasised it with all the fervour of the ovnngelisl.! lie had s'oen farm after farm, fie j urged, where the trouble was that the fanner had too much land, and wasj not aide to employ hi hour where it! could be utilised profitably so that bin property was standing still or actually going back. The Government had tried lo do what il could and had lent

farmers an enormous amount of money at a low rate, of interest as well as instituting the moratorium. Imt the diffi-

culty still existed. Noxious weeds were getting a hold, 'and were becoming a danger to the country, how great only those w’lio had been though the islands could understand. He noticed the other day the Minister of Hands sug-

gested that: the remedy, was a' sane ami gradual subdivision of the land. He himself believed this could he done without settling the country with miserably poor peasantry. Me thought the Dominion could double the number ol its cultivators, lie saw no other way of gradually increasing the production of this country. If Mr Reeves succeeds in awakening the country to the vital importance of t J his problem, he will eclipse all his previous great services to the Dominion.