The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 1, 1912. A WORD IN SEASON.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 313, 1 July 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 1, 1912. A WORD IN SEASON.

The, Hon. James Bryce, unlike some of the peripatetic visitors who Tush through New Zealand at top speed by train and motor-car and undertake to teach us our business as a result of their casual observations, has apparently preferred to assimilate knowledge of our conditions and our requirements in a more leisurely manner. His public utterances have, inj deed, been singularly illuminative and well-considered, and he has got a much better grip of New' Zealand's requirements than one is wont to associate with the average globe-trotter. He scored a distinct triumph in Wellington on Friday night wben lie spoke at some length at the capping ceremony at Victoria College. As a rule, social and political dissertations are not too eagerly welcomed by the students, who regard them as a fair butt for the classic interjections with which they are accustomed to punctuate such deliverances. Mr. Bryce was, however, listened to with exceptional orderliness, and it is a tribute to his personality that the students should have given him such an exceptionally good hearing. He advocated the four central colleges in Xew Zealand concentrating themselves on some special field of activity, and particularly urgad the creation of an Agricultural College of special excellence. "They had," he said, "resources in New Zealand equalled in few countries and surpassed in no portion of the Empire. Tliev had to develop those resources and cultivate with science, and he knew of no manner in which the Legislature could render greater service than in the establishment of an agriculcultural college on the widest lines and of the highest state of efficiency. In the United States and Canada during the last twenty years the value of agricultural land and the value of stock had been ddubled in many parts by the application of proper scientific methods. If they adopted this system of specialising they would secure in the four departments a standard of excellence that was unattainable unless they concentrated their money and power." Coming from a man of Mr. Bryce's world-wide experience this advice is particularly well-timed and valuable. The man in the street who regards his own personal politics as the be-all and ond-all of our existence is apt to cheerfully prophesy that Now Zealand is rapidly approaching a state of bankruptcy and is gently drifting to Mr. Mantilini's "demnition bow-wow." As a ! simple matter of fact, so far as the productiveness of the country is concerned, we have only really just begun to scratch the surface of the land. Everybody admits that the first need of the country is closer settlement, but coincident with this we must have closer and more scientific farming. To secure, this we must have modern farmers, men who can apply scientific principles to their working of the land and make four potatoes grow wherfc, under more primitive conditions, only one would grow,

and graze two sileep to the acre where originally one was pastured. It is obvious that special training is necessary to secure this result, and that training can be beat obtained by the creation of sucli a college as Mr. Bryce suggests. The Government, of course, has had this in view for some time, and the opinion expressed by an outsider of Mr. Bryce's calibre and should encourage it in .giving speedy effect to the suggestion.