NEW GOVERNOR-GENERAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 835, 2 December 1929, Page 9

NEW GOVERNOR-GENERAL

FINE TYPE OF COUNTRY GENTLEMAN

ARDENT AGRICULTURIST United r.A. — By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, Saturday. The new Governor-General of New Zealand, Lord Bledisloe, is a tine type of English country gentleman. He is of medium height and athletic build. lie is an enthusiastic agriculturist, and is a strong supporter of the principle of small holdings worked by a farmer nud his family, as opposed to the tenant system. Lord Bledisloe advocates co-opera-tion by farmers not merely in the sale of their produce but also in the purchase of raw materials, transportation aud the use of credit facilities, lie considers farmers should organise for the control of the wholesale markets and regulate the sale of their products. He is particularly interested in New Zealand’s system of marketing dairy produce aud keenly anticipates observing the scheme in actual operation in New Zealand. Lord Bledisloe had intended to lead the delegation of British farmers which will shortly visit Australia and New Zealand. He now expects to embark for New Zealand in January. SMALL FAMILY FARMS In an article published in the “Spectator,” Lord Bledisloe said the creation of small family farms had become an urgent need for the output of home-grown food and the production of efficient men and women, well equipped for the task of peopling the overseas Empire. He added: “It is. indeed, the human product of the peasant proprietary system, such as exists in Scandinavia, which has provided Australia, Canada and New Zealand with a far more experienced and more confident type of settler than Britain is able to do, either from the urban unemployed or from the illequipped denizens of the devitalised countryside, operating helplessly under a worn-out territorial economic system.” DISCORDANT NOTE Speaking tonight at a dinner of the Gloucester Institute of Bankers. Lord Bledisloe said he was rather preoccupied because three days ago the King, on the recommendation of the Government of one of the foremost. Dominions, had asked him to undertake the Governor-Generalship of New Zealand. It was with the deepest regret that he would have to absent himself from the dear Old Country for five years. He felt most diffident, but he would try to justify his Majesty’s selection and would do the best in his power as an Englishman and a Gloucestershire man.

The only discordant note regarding Lord Bledisloe’s appointment was struck by the “Daily Herald," which asks why the Government should ap point a Tory. The paper says the Government might well have fol lowed the precedent established Jr the case of Tasmania, where Sii James O'Grady had acquitted himsel with distinction as Governor.