IMPRESSIONS OF NEW ZEALAND.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 237, 16 March 1915, Page 7

IMPRESSIONS OF NEW ZEALAND.

BY A VISITING. II.P. A further letter on New Zealand from Mr Philip Snowdcn, M;P., appears in this week's Christian Commonwealth, lie writes:— "l'ew tilings we have seen in New Zealand have surprised us so much as the settled appearance of the country in many parts. Where the country is settled it is very like homeland. We have motored over most of tile North Island, and the appearance of the country—the fields divided by thorn hedges. the clusters of trees planted here and there, the singing of the imported lark and thrush —-was so much like an English landscape as to make one feel as if one were at home. The one thing which is so bright is the atmosphere, which is so bright and clear that objects fifty miles away appear to be quite near. We have been much surprised with the roads-here, which, for a country so new and so sparsely populated, are very good indeed; in fact, they are better than were the roads in England twenty years ago."

POPULATION AND POLITICS. Mr Snowden has a few remarks under these heads. With regard to the trend of population he says:—"ln spite "of the profitable nature of farming in New Zealand, the settlement of the land is not progressing very fast. Practically all the land within a reasonable distance of good roads and the railways has been brought into use. and men are showing greater reluctance to go away into the backhlocks. Here, as in other there is a disposition to settle in or about the towns. This is a very had tendency, especially in a country like New Zealand, where the towns do not support a community engaged in manufacturing industries, but where, the town population is parasitic on the rural districts. There is little prospect of the development of great manufacturing trades in New Zealand. The country has rich deposits of coal and some iron, lmt even with the artifirfal aid of a high tariff and the encouragement of the Government in other ways!, very little proj gress in manufactures has been made."

After paying a tribute to the goahead methods of the New Zealand farmer, the British M.P. concludes:— "Politically, the New Zealand farmers have in' the past been the mainstay of

the Liberal Party. It was the Radicalism of the farmers which kept the Liberals in office, for a continuous period of twenty-one years. But tilings are changing. The prosperity of the farmers has tended to make them Conservative. The policy of converting leaseholds into freeholds has made the, farmer into a landlord, with all the selfish interests of the landlord class. The towns also are changing poitically, and if the Liberals obtain a majority, it will be by the Votes of the working classes in the towns, who are much exasperated with tlie anti-Labor policy of the present Conservative Government."