ENGLISH RURAL LIFE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1938, Page 9

ENGLISH RURAL LIFE

CONTINUED DRIFT TO CITIES IN SPITE OF IMPROVED CONDITIONS

Most New Zealanders who go to England devote the majority of their time to seeing the gaiety and the bright lights of London. Not so Major H. Westmacott, King Country agriculturist, who from the moment he landed in England, buried himself in the English countryside, studying the problems and the progress of the English farmer. Major Westmacott, who returned to Wellington yesterday by the Awatea, said that the principal difficulty with which the Home farmers were confronted was precisely the same as now ebing experienced in New Zealand — a dwindling population in the country districts. The influx to the cities was even more marked. The influences and attractions to young men to abandon the country life were many. The Government’s policy of providing work on the roads, practically at the farmer’s gate, was an unsettling one. The Army and Navy were making a determined drive for recruits, stressing the aspect of mechanisation, likely to appeal to young men. To make conditions more attractive for the farm labourers, landowners and county administrative authorities were doing all in their power to provide good homes for them, at moderate rental. The house being provided was an extremely good type of five-roomed cottage. In addition, the landowners were carrying out reconditioning of existing houses. It was generally agreed that the average rent of 8s was too high, and a movement was afoot to reduce farm labourers’ rents to an untimate level of 3s a week.