PICTURE OF DOMINION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5047, 3 November 1926, Page 1

PICTURE OF DOMINION.

NO BOOM FOR IMMIGRANTS.

VIEWS OF A SOUTHERNER.

Interesting sidelights on present-

day conditions in Ne,w Zealand, were

given by Dr. A. T. McCaw, of Invercargill, New Zealand, at a’, recent meeting of the Manchester Rotary Club, Though the country w,as slightly

larger in area than Great Britain, said Dr McCaw, and had a population cf only one and a quarter millions, it

was not in a position to .absorb any

immigrants. It had practically no secondary industries at all, being wholly an agricultural and stockfarming land, whilst even here there was sip rtfom for ,additional farm labour. New faijms could only be developed with the aid of a fairly large capital, and men who entered New Zealand to start on their own usually found they had to work at labbiting—catching rabbits a,nd selling their skins—to get a few hundred pounds together. This was a most disgusting occupation, entailing constant hard labour in an odour of dead and decaying rabbits, and years of it was the maximum the most hardy cduld stand.

Thq country was, however, rapidly developing in another way, thiSj being the utilisation by the Government of its swift-flowing rivers nad large inland lakes for the generation of electricity . To provide the necessary capital all farmers, were 'rated about £2O per annum, and were provided with that value of current gratis. In consequence every farm had power Idjid on fpn all purposes, even in the far backwoods. It could n.dt as yet be said that the current was cheap, but a substantial reduction was likely as the scheme developed.

As regarded domestic affaiils, New Zealand had a pronounced housing problem, new houses being difficult to get, cheap ds to material and expensive as to cost. An sight-roomed brick house cost about £4OOO. The roads' wqre execrable, in many parts being quite impossible for motors, and the Government wa s now taking up this problem with some, vigour. There was, a definite movement on the part erf the farming population from the southern to the northern part of the country, the reason bqing that in these hotter regions, where winters were alm.o'st non-existent, the grass grew .all the year rlound, and there was no need to provide winter feed for the cattle. Dr. McCaw mentioned the extraordinary progress of the Maori natives, many of whom were ndw haM-br.eeds. A century these people used to eat their enemies ; fifty yqars ago the Government had a stiff fight to make them conform with civilised notions of decent clothingt<May the Maoris took high honours in schools a.nd universities, and we.re very successful business men. Their numbers were, however, lessening very year.