TASMANIAN VISITORS

Hokitika Guardian, 8 April 1929, Page 2

TASMANIAN VISITORS

f TO TOUR THE DOMINION.

AUCKLAND, April 5,

Information has heen received in Auckland by cablegram to the effect that the Minister of Agriculture for Tasmania, Sir Walter H. Lee, is about to make a tour of New Zealand. He will be accompanied by the Director of Agricultlre for Tasmania, Mr Frank E. Ward, who until three years ag<was a member of the staff of the Department of Agriculture in New Zealand.

The visitors will arrive in Wellington on Tuesday next, and after conferring with the Minister of Agriculture, the Hon. G. W. Forbes, and officers of the Department, they will travel through Wellington, Canterbury, and Auckland provinces.

The purpose of the visit is to profit by whatever lessons may be learnt from the results of the operations of the Agricultlral Department in the Dominion.

Sir Walter Lee belongs to Longford, a farming district in northern Tasmania, and since 1900 he has been a member of the House of Assembly. From 1910 to 1922 he was Premier, Chief Secretary and Minister of Education. Since the defeat of the Labour Government he has held the portfolios of Lands, Public Works and Agriculture. Mr Ward was instructor in agriculture at the Seddon Memorial College. Auckland, at the time of leaving for the war, and later he took a prominent part as instructor in the same subject under the auspices of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force education scheme at G'odford, England. On returning to New Zealand he was field instructor in the Wellington area, and was in charge of the Canterbury district when the Tasmanian Government decided to establish a Department of Agriculture, with a view to assisting the primary industries of the Island.