IMMIGRATION AND FARMERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9546, 19 July 1909, Page 5

IMMIGRATION AND FARMERS.

By Telegraph Press - Association. CHRISTCHURCH, July 17. The Hnn. T. Mackenzie does not regard in a very serious light statements made recently that New Zeland farmers aro immigrating in large numbers to Australia. He told a reporter yesterday that as far as he knew, farmers who were leaving New Zealand were, for the most part, men wno had done remarkably well here, and who saw an opportunity in Queensland for making investments which, if the seasons were good, would give them a splenidd return. "I do not at all regard the position as an exodus of farmers," he said; "it rather points to the fact that there is such an accumulation of interna' capital, as I might say, that it has enabled people to make investments and undertakings in other countries. They are not all successful. Another complexion is placed on the question by the circumstances of a gentleman I knew. He struggled on Queensland farms, ' and hoped against hope for four or five years; finally owing to" the drought, he lose his two properties, and really his own life. The following season proved to he a good one. and money is now flowing in to those who have his properties. It is a gamble, and it is only those who can afford 'to gamble who should enter into the game. There does not seem to be anything much in the cry of a new exodus. ihat, any rate, is my opinion."