SO LIKE HOME.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2928, 27 August 1925, Page 2

SO LIKE HOME.

IMPRESSIONS OF A FOX BOX “TIMES" MAX, Among the gifted speakers inciuded in the party of delegates on their way to the Empire Press Union conference in Sydney is Caplain Shaw, of the London “Times,’ who, at yesterday’s Xew Zealand flul) luncheon, al Wellington, welcomed the chance of “getting off his chest" some acknowledgement of the warm hospitality they had 11 reived ever since they landed in Auckland. They had really bad a marvellous time, lie said, and the wonder of one day had been exceeded by the wonder of the next. Thev only had one slight grievance, and that was the weather, but lhoimh ii hail been chilly that had I,ceil entirely dis-ipated by the warmth of the welcome received cvervwhere.

“Seeing iii at this is the last city we are to visit in this country, he continued, “one would imagine that we ought to have formed prettv definite impressions, but 1 must confess that I find it difficult to realise that we are not at Home,

us the places are so extraordinary

alike. One has to fix one’s gaze upon a cabbage tree to be quite sure that one is not in Surrey, or Wales, or some parts of Scotland.

Vnd when I go into the homes here I find it perfectly impossible to remember that 1 am not at Home. Ii seems to me that the great spaces of the Pacific have shrunk to a channel —that- Xew Zealand is Home. 1! is not my first: experience of New Zealanders. Some ten years ago 1 spent two months in a New Zealand country, one of coarse scrub and worse —dysentery —a country that will ever he known as Anzae —where the men of your race -lied their blood and sowed the soil with their bodies, to reap as rich a harvesl of glory as any country has ever done. . . . there is one mitigating circumstance in this country, ami that is that there uiv 11 <ll enough Xew Zealanders. I don’t know why it is. It seems simple enough. There are plenty of English, Scotch, or even Irish (of which T am one), and all you have to do is to get them steamer

tickets, as cheap as may he, and

Xew Zealand will do the rest. (Applause.) We’ve go I the raw material: and the machinery is in

existence; all we have to do is to get out tin* oil can, and get the machinery going a little quicker I ban ever before." Captain Shaw said that he had paid a visit to Flock House, and had admired the excellence of that institution, lull that was only scratching ihe surface of the problem. I| miisi now be tackled in

good earliest, as a good system ol immigration of young men would he a ••.strength to us and a security to