IMPRESSIONS OF QUEENSLAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1098, 25 January 1912, Page 4

IMPRESSIONS OF QUEENSLAND.

AN EX-NEW ZEALANDER’S OPINIONS.

An ex-New Zealander, vs ho is now settled in Queensland, Mr A. C. Thomson, is at present on a visit to New Zealand. At the present time, Mr, Thomson is in Timaru, recovering from an illness. During the course of a conversation with a representative of the Timaru Herald, the visitor said that Australia was very prosperous just now. It was, he believed, working up to a boom; it was in the position now that New Zealand was in ten years ago. It was a difficult thing to get houses built, or even timber with which to built them, and labour of all classes was very hard to get. A good many people said that it was a series of very prosperous years which had brought this about, but Australia had not had an exceptionally prosperous time during the past five years—the past five years had, in fact, scarcely been up to the ordinary. The fact of the matter was that Australia had a set back for a number of years, and was now recovering from it. THINGS BRISK IN QUEENSLAND. Queensland, said Mr Thomson, was getting its share ot the prosperity. Everything was brisk there. They were getting an enormous number of immigrants from England, Scotland, Ireland, Russia, Holland and Germany, but chiefly from England and Scotland. All the available passenger ships were fully taxed, and intending immigrants from England had to book six months ahead to get a passage to Queensland. About three months ago one vessel took 1400 immigrants to Queensland. The people were absorbed as fast as they were there, and there was no sign of unemployment. The Government carried out a vigorous and very good system of land settlement, and this attracted many hundreds of people to the country, land settlement. Different classes of land were provided for the settleis. There was some bush land which was given them fornothing; other better land could be bought at up to 10s per acre on terms extending over 40 years ; and resumed estate could be bought at from £2 10s to £5 per acre on payment of xo per cent, cash, nothing for the next four years, and the balance to be paid in payments extending over twenty years. Last year the Queensland Government settled six millions acres of land, and the year before 5)4 millions, or million acres in two years. Mr Thomson said that his farm was part of a resumed estate; it was all flat, alongside the railway, all ploughable, and would grow cereal crops as well as lucerne to perfection. He intended to put down another 200 acres in lucerne this year, and to keep on sowing until he had the whole farm in this kind of feed. rainfall and the crops. The rainfall last year up to November was very light, with the result that a good many crops were failures; but since November the country had taken on an entirely new appearance and feed was now very plentiful. It grew very quickly there after the rain. When he left home he had a mob of good store cattle on the farm, but since his arrival here he had received a cablegram from his son that the butchers had taken a good many of them as fats, and a draft of fats had also been sent to the freezing works. He mentioned this to indicate how rapidly the feed grew and cattle fattened after a good rain.