IDEAL EXISTENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 52, 26 March 1909, Page 4

IDEAL EXISTENCE.

Mr. W. 11. Campbell, speaking at the annual meeting of shareholders in .Messrs. Holier! Campbell and Sons, in Ijoikhiii, was loud in His praises of the life and conditions of the New Zealand small farmers, die thought especially that the occupants of their late freeholds, in the Waitaki Valley (the land pureliastid from the company by the New Zealand Government) were liound to thrive under the new conditions allowed to them by thai .Government. They could imagine the profits likely to be. earned bv the industrious settler, working with his family 200 acres of agricultural land. "One 'of the greatest assets of New Zealand," said Mr. Campbell, "i* Us climate, especially when account is taken of the periodic drought* occurring in Australia. If you look-lit a map of the world, I think you will see that a climate favorable to colonisation bv the British race is comparatively limited. I was talking the othe,. day with a man who had resided for a. number of years in Queensland, an'd when he. described to me the conditions under which our fcllow-counlry-incn live in the back blocks of that colony 1 did not think that a New'Zcakuulcr would like to exchange lots with theiii. A settler ill the, centre of Australia desirous -of reaching one of the ■principal towns lias to travel in bis huggv a distance of twenty, thirty, or fiffyfmilcs to the nearest railway station, and then has a journey of hundreds of mill's before lie reaches his destination. In the case of your Waitaki fanner in New Zealand, his land often adjoins the railway; at all events, some six miles bring him to the train, and- a journey o,f forty miles lands him at the port o'f Oainurii. "As an Englishman," observed the chairman in conclusion, "I must sav I cannot but admire the policy of the New Zealand Government in thus creating a population of small proprietors; and I cannot but wonder at the stupidity of our rulers here, who have never had the sense to establish a well-thought-out scheme of Government emigration and an. Imperial Board to regulate the commercial relations bet ween ourselves and our colonies. The obstinacy of George 111. and his advisers in aiUicr'ni" to a few trumpery taxes lost us the United Stales. The carelessness and indolence of the so-called statesmen who have governed this country for the last fifty years have thrown away chances of establishing our surplus'population in comfortable Ironies in Creator Britain, united to the Mother Countrv bv intimate ties or their common interest in Hie trade, of the Empire, which may never occur again."