LORD AND LADY APSLEY.

Shannon News, 2 March 1926, Page 4

LORD AND LADY APSLEY.

TRY LIFE IN AUSTRALIA UNDER ASSUMED NAMES. THEIR ADVENTURES IN THE BUSH What is the fate of young Eng- ■ lisfa couples who emigrate to Australia to try their hands at life in the busl? » How do bachelors faro ? Lord Apsley, MJP., was so interested in these questions that he decided to emigrate. The Australian authorities in London, to whom he applied as "George Bott" —the name of his orderly—during the war—accepted him as an "assisted settler," and so his lordship was able to test personally the facilities offered to a young Englishman physically fit but inexperienced in farm work. After trying his hand at a bachelor's farm job, Lord Apsley met? Ids wile in Australia, and together as "Mr. and Mrs. Alan -James" took a vacancy on a group settlement to tackle pioneering and eventually dairy farming. A Common or Garden "Emigrant." I want, at the putset, to make it clear that my experiences ion the voyage and in Australia are nothing out of the ordinary, being similar to those, that hundreds are going through every week.—Lord Ausley, M.P., in •"The Times."

Travelling as George Bott, on an "assisted" ticket, Lord Apsley, wearing an old suit and an old waterproof embarked on the Orient s.s. Orama, 20,000 tons. Tilbury to Melbourne, on March 7 Ia&. He had his kit m an old leather suit case and a rather worn leather bag. He was, one takes it, an ordinary-looking member in the party-of 150 assisted migrants, who messed together in the forward part of the . ship. Food was plain but good, and there was plenty of it. There was plenty of amusement on beard. George Bott won the potato race, and was a proud member of the team that won the deck race. The most important point as regards the voyage, however, in his warning to emigrants who get rid of their cash before reaching Australia. AH his lordship's friends who left the ship at Fremantle got job's in the Western Australian wheat belt at 30/- a week and keep. When Ho Got The "Blues." Melbourne, apparently, makes one homesick. Richmond House, where the immigrants arcj accommodated after leaving the ship, is clean and comfortable, but the atmosphere is somewhat depressing, perhaps, his lordship suggests, "because of the toughness of the meat provided at every meal. Also many of us had already mot* loafers and ne'er-do-weeJs hanging about the docks and ,the Immigration Bureau, who gave us the most depressing stories of conditions in Australia." The next "blue" period Lord Apsley

passed through—a» do all who emi- j grate as he did —was when he arrived j us a "newy" on the farm where work had been found for him. All the pamphlets and lectures in the world cannot give a correct impression of the difference in the conditions of life th e new hand encounters as compared with the life he left in the old country, and although he soon shakes down ,and even beginis to enjoy the new conditions, the first few days are undoubtedly very trying to some temperaments, and cause that feeling of helplesness which in turn is apt to prejudice the Australian farmer against the English town migrant. The two dangers, then, would appear to be first impressions the migrant's impressions as he struggles with strangeness and homesickness at Melbourne and those of a farmer who expects wonders in five minutes from unskilled hands. Comfortable Jobs.

Lord Apsley went up to Mirboo, Gippsland to do odd jobs, cut bracken and learn dairy farming, under a Dr. Moir, who had dropped medicine for farming. Pay was to be 20/- a week and keep. Moir is a Scot from Aberdeen, who bought lean stock during a drought, fattened them at a good profit. (These wonderful Scots!) Lord Apsley stayed with him two days, and this is his verdict: —"I was well treated. The work was not hard. If a migrant of riper years, wishing only to have a comfortable living and regular job, I eould have been perfectly contented to stay on. "As I became more skilled at my work it would not have taken very long, I should have asked for bigger wages and got them, or I should have worked on contract, the usual pay being about 12/- a day." Could Have Got Better Pay. But Lord Apsley, of course, wanted to see more. He immediately got a job on a wheat farm belonging to a Mr. Holt, near Manangtang; pay 20/and keep. The Immigration Board said conditions would probably be rough, but Mr. Holt was guaranteed by the polic e as being a good man to work for. And here another note of warning! Lord Apsley could have got better pay. He had better offers j IB route, but he thought it wiser to j stick on the job the bureau had pick- j ed as suitable for a newcomer. I Mrs. Holt, herself of English birth and education, may be described as a good sort, with a kind heart for the Britisher. Mrs. Holt was a cultured Englishwoman who never knew what it was to cook or sew till she went to Australia. "She became a great cook," is Lord Apsley's compliment. Let him describe his work at Holt's farm. It was not too hard, but it was intensely instructive (he writes). Daily Routine.' "The usual routine was that I got up at 5.30, fed the horses, of which there were eight, plough horses, two ponies, and a colt. After that, breaklast, which either Tom or Mrs. Holt cooked. After breakfast, feed the chickens, pigs and cows, and at eight o'clock Holt and I would start with the team for the paddocks. As a rule while Holt ploughed I carried on with clearing the land in which he was going to put into crop the following season. There were also the usual odd jobs round the farm repairs to fences, chopping firewood, which consisted of inalee stumps, which were split with a blunt axe and made a most excellent fuel. ■ Could Have Started On His Own.

"I was here just over three weeks, and am quite satisfied that I would have been contented, to keep this Job, and that in, say, two years' time I could hav e started a block of my own in partnership with another man. Holt had promised me that he would help me to do so if I gave satisfaction working for him during the next two year's. However, conditions are not the same on every farm. As a general rule they are as this. on e was, and migrants, as soon as they have got accustomed to their new surrounding's, become quickly contented, but where' the farmer is 'batching'—that is to say, lie is living ,or rather camping, as a bachelor—on his block conditions are often rough. "Where the farmer is married, conditions are almost invariably very much better. There is also a certain amount of social entertainment, even in these pioneering districts."

J3INTER LADY APSLEY. HOW -SHE WORKED AS "MRS. ALAN JAMES." Eventually Lady Apsley-joined her husband, and as "Mr. and. Mrs. Alan James" they took up a vacancy on a group settlement. "on the Margaret River, near Busselton.. Sussex, Western Australia. Their house was a four-roomed wooden house, with a verandah on each side. For the benefit of those who are thinking of taking the Australian "plunge," it may be as well as to give extracts from Lord Apsleys' "Times" articles, which show how the. settler's wife may expect to fare. Here they are: —■ "Meanwhile my wife was nobly carrying on the duties of a settler's wife. She found that her neighbours particularly Mrs. Sammle and another further on, Mrs. Taylor, wer e the kindest of folk, and gave her a warm welcome and every help she required. The baking of bread in a wood stove, which entailed the making of her own yeast, at first somewhat defeated her. I suggested that one of the first sample loaves might do well as a local geological specimen for the Royal Geographical Society; but while she conducted these initial experiments in yeast bread, she was baking the most delightful milk-and-baking. powder bread and Scotch scones, and after one or two attempts she finally emerged triumphant, and for the rest of our slay there produced most excellent yeast baked bread. Happy and Contented. "My wife found ,as I have said, the

other sealers' wives a very neighbourly lot. and they all seemed happy and contented. They had their houses and their families and their husbands at regular work, with the prospect of yearly becoming in a better situation, and there seemed really nothing to trouble thorn, except the possible advent of ill-health or accident to any members of the families.' Th© former, owing, to the healthiness! of the climate, is extraordinarily rare, but, in the event of either, a hospital insurance scheme has been started amongst the groupers, and they arc treated at an excellent ho'spital near BnssrOton." 'Lord and Lady Apsley liked the life, and that should serve as an encouragement to those who are'hesitating on the brink. His lordship's experiences go to corroborate what the writer who makes these extracts knows on' good authority- -that a 3(.rong English lad, who is no! tired, will do far better in Australia than he can hope to do in this country.