A CLERIC ON NEW ZEALAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 450, 16 February 1909, Page 2

A CLERIC ON NEW ZEALAND.

Trui Rev. Isaac Shimmin, who visited New Zealand recently, has been telling Cornish audiences what he thinks of the Dominion. There was no barrier between the different churches in New Zealand as there was in England, he said at Camborne, and he did not know why there snould be that divison in the Mother Country. He did not see a beggar in the Dominion during his four months’ visit, and all the people dressed with good taste, and never looked shabby. Women had the right to vote, and there was no suffragettes. For years he had been in favour of women exercising that He had been in three countries, including the Isle of Man, where women voted and he had never known the women to misuse their privilege. They voted always on the side of righteousness and morality. The women of New Zealand did not want seals in Parliament. In ordinary elections only 50 per cent of the women voted, but when such mailers as the drink question came before them, 74 per cent, went to the poll and voted en bloc on the side of temperance. Mr Shimmin proceeded to speak of the life of the worker in New Zealand. Sweating was practically unknown, he said, and there were no injurious trades in the Dominion. Incidentally he declared that miner’s phthisis was nonexistent here, an opinion that looks strange in view of the recent crisis over this very disease. Mr Shimmin touched on old-age pensions, education, and other matters, and concluded by stating that New Zealand was a fine country for a young man with a trade, who was determined to work. It was God’s own country and deserved the name. He did not remember seeng a drunken man in any town he visited- Religious life was broad and liberal, and the men did not care to which church a parson belonged as long as he had no “frills ” or “side - ” Although there were dangers, economic dangers, if New Zealand retained her beliefs in tire highest ideals of life and service she would become .one of the brightest and most precious jewels in the crown of the British Empire.