NO DELUSIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 July 1920, Page 9

NO DELUSIONS.

309 IMMIGRANTS ARRIVE. None of the old exaggerated notions of a land flowing with milk and honey, where the stranger sees ''gangs of 'em digging for gold in the street," are shared by tile io!) immigrants who were brought safely to land by the Ar'awa, from Suutluiiiiptoii, in Auckland the other day. These people are mostly married, and between them they seem to have plenty of children, but very few are coming here friendless, for the greater majority have brothers or other relatives already resident in the Dominion, and most of tliera have a faily accurate idea of the conditions they will meet in the new, country, says the Auckland Star. Quite a number of the newcomers hail from Ireland, and most of these have had actual farming experience in Erin's Ir-le, wMle for the most part they arc not without a certain amount of capital. These people, in common with the English and Scotsmen aboard, are under no delusions about New Zealand, though most of them expect to find large tracts of unfenccd, wild country adjacent to the railway lines, and others again have large notions of getting into the heart of e.vtensive bush country. Apart from these little anomalies, they all come with the knowledge that plenty of hard work is ahead of them, but their preconceived notions of these islands are perhaps rather exaggerated in the sense that they expect to find here a country that is not nearly so difficult as England is to-day. One lad from Ireland Ijad left his own farm behind, and was bringing some capital. His conversation was rather interesting. With a brother in Greymouth, he understood that it was a coal district down there, and the Star man | was somewhat surprised when he mentioned the word "snailways" in connection with certain means of communication. He told how he had ridden in | Fngland over five hundred odd miles in less than twelve hours, and evinced no | surprise at all when ho was told a trip I from Auckland to Wellington would | take about seventeen hours. But he ! asked whether Cook Strait was a dan- ; gerous place. Said he had.heard that i there were oftpn misfortunes occurring '• in tjjat piece of water. { . A fair proportion of thp new arrivals | have come out of offices, n r 1 the great | majority are going farming, but all of J them intend getting work for wages on j the land before they set out on their ! own. They look to New Zealand as a ! land where the people are Very sociable, ; where a man is taken always at his ; face value, and it is not difficult to : get on providing one works." ; Very few were found to destine themi selves for domestic service, and from I what could be gathered this would api pear to be only the last resort. | / While waiting in the stream much in- : terest was directed at the distant sight of Auckland. A Londoner thought it looked a very neat little place. "All the houses look clean and neat, you ' know." The old Goshawk steamed past i with a cargo of lorries and drays, and I from this many took their first impresj sion of the manners and customs of the | land. Some of them seemed quite surprised at a laden lorry dawn by a j three-horse team, the Irishman pre- • viouply referred to knew these things i were called, but he had never seen one ; before. He looked round the harbor, ; and suddenly said, "What would you do ■if the Japs come here? I don't see any- ; thing to keep, them away." "Oh, fight : while we rfould, I suppose." "Do you j know," he said, "I think there should ! be a special squadron of British warI ships to protect New Zealand."