AMERICA OF TO-DAY.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 January 1921, Page 7

AMERICA OF TO-DAY.

AN INTERESTING VISITOR. / CONDITIONS IN THE STATES. NEW 7 ZEALAND’S ATTRACTIONS. Mr. W. D. Boyce (publisher of the Chicago Ledger, Saturday Blade, Farming Business, and Indiana Daily Times), who is at present travelling through New Zealand, was interviewed on Saturday by a Wellington Times representative. “My object in coming over here,” said Mr. Boyce, “is to get a story for my readers at home of a country that 1 > in America don’t know enough i bout. I arrived in Auckland a week or so ago, and I intend to say here about a month in all, leaving some time after the middle of. February. I have seen a good deal of the North Island on my way down here; and I want to see something of the South Island now. “Your people here are very hospitable. Certainly, they make a person feel at home right away. I can’t see (he added) why anybody in a country like New Zealand wants to travel or go to any other country; becauase you have got everything here that there is in any other place in the world. You have the products and the scenery—-snow-capped mountains, active volcanoes, lakes, forests, geysers, and so forth; all kinds of game and fish, and opportunities for sport of all kinds. All any man going from New Zealand can see is something like what he has already got at home.” “Yes,” said Mr. Boyce, in answer to a question, “I take a great interest in educational matters in the broad sense —both in scholastic education and in that which follows it; because education doesn’t finish when you are through with school. The imbibing of information should go on all through life. I have been told that you have an excellent school system here; but, o-f course, I am not in the position of knowing much about it. I haven’t had the time to look into it yet. No person can go wrong about New Zealand, I should say, who keeps his ears and eyes open, and takes a lot of photographs wherever he goes, and then takes your ‘Year Book’ for the facts and figures. That is what it is for; and, with it, there is no reason for anybody to go wrong in regard to your country; unless, of course, he intentionally wants to do so. 20 PER CENT. DROP IN AMERICA.

“Industrial conditions in America are bad,” states Mr. Boyce. “They are not good at all. According to the cables I have seen since leaving the States, about two months ago, the general drop in business and prices over there is about 20 per cent, as compared with the position about a year ago.. We are just simply like all other countries after the war, ‘getting over a financial drunk.’ We have to pay for that ‘big head’ now. Employment, of course, has gone with the business. To put it briefly, while we used to have more jobs than men, now we have more men than we have jobs. That is the only way I can express it. Production has increased, though the number of employers has decreased. The mon have settled down and got bacls. into their working stride again. T know of cases where firms took off 25 per cent, of their men because they wished to reduce production, and the production was held up, with the result that they had to shut down part of the time, as they could not get rid of the goods they were manufacturing with the reduced number of employees.”

“Then you haven't got in the States the go-slow system that we have here?” observed the Times representative. “Well,” replied Mr. Boyce, “we have had it, but we are getting over it. It has been very bad with us, but we are distinctly getting rid of it. Go-slow is the national result of the disturbed con. ditions the world oyer; but as we get back into a normal average condition, production will get back into its stride. Prices, however, will never be so low in the world again as they were before the war. We have got to pay for the war, and that means that we have to pay increased prices for everything. “A VERY INTERESTING RACE.”

Mr. Boyce said that he had greatly enjoyed his visit to Rotorua, where he stayed two or three days on his way down from Auckland to Wellington. “The Maoris,” he said, “seem a very interesting race of people. They are the only wild race that I have ever come in contact with, and I have come in contact with nparly all of them, that seems to take on civilisation well. I heard an explanation of it to-day, which greatly interested me. It is that the Maoris take to civilisation so kindly because they are good sports, because they like the same things as the British like—horse-racing and all kinds of athletic sports.” Mr. Boyce added that he was greatly ptruck with the height and physjque of the Maoris and of our own people as well, out here. “In fact,” he said, “everything seems to grow well here. The trout we sent out to New Zealand grew to three or four times the size of our trout in the States; and it is the same with imported trees and so on. Such is not usually the case.”