PROMINENT VISITORS.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 336, 18 January 1937, Page 5

PROMINENT VISITORS.

AGRICULTURAL TOUR.

Victorian Cabinet Minister Stays at Stratford.

The Director of Agriculture fcr Victoria, Mr. H. A. Mullett, and the Assistant Minister of Agriculture in the Victorian Government, Mr. H. J. Hyland, who are at present on a tour ot New Zealand, preparing a report on agricultural development in the Dominion, stopped at Stratford for lunch to-day, on their way south from New Plymouth. With them were Messrs. A. G. Elliott, Inspector of Agriculture at New Plymouth, and Mr. J. E. Davies, Inspector of Agriculture at Hawera. Mr. Elliott is accompanying the party to Palmerston North, and Mr. Davies will show the visitors over the South Taranaki district. Interviewed by a “Central Press” representative, both Mr. Mullett and Mr. Hyland expressed appreciation of the co-operation and assistance rendered them by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Internal Affairs of New Zealand. They had arrived in Wellington early in January and had travelled north to the Science Congress at Auckland, and were now on their way souhh again. After touring the South Island they expected to leave for Australia >on February 2. Both were ot opinion that the help that had been given them and the information that had been made available by the two departments had enabled them to see more than if they had spent a year in the country as private persons. The Victorian Government, said Mr Hyland, would be glad to extend the same facilities to any representatives of the New Zealand Government who visited the State. He thought that just as they were learning a great deal from what they saw in New Zealand, so New Zealanders could learn something from the farming methods of Victoria.

There was no reason why there should not be a great deal more cooperation between Australia and New Zealand, giving mutual benefit. Both countries were faced with the same problems of finding markets for their expanding primary production, and it was of no use for them to “cut one another’s throats” when they could work in harmony together.