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hamilton: The Empire's Dairy Capital. (Continued from page 13.)

of municipal enterprises, but I was particularly struck with the commercial efficiency with which the gas and electrical departments were handled. As noticed before, the volume of business is quite unusual on a population basis. The library is a fine one, and the presence of good bookshops with the most modern representations of serious books gives evidence of a good standard of reading taste. In common with other provincial capitals Hamilton's inhabitants enjoy all the modern amenities such as deep drainage, paved roads, good theatres and cinemas, and an up-to-date transport service. The latter by the way is privately owned and is soundly run.

Hamilton has its own peculiar problem of development. Its main thoroughfare expansion is prevented by the river and on the other side there is a small low hill in the middle of the city which sits squatly athwart the parallel streets. The constantly increasing motor traffic makes the main street a spectacle every hour of the day as it is lined two deep. It seems a pity that the rather disfiguring little hill cannot be removed. A scheme for enabling this went astray though its financial implications had been scrutinised by the highest authority in the land. It would have undoubtedly ennobled and wholly altered the layout of the city.

I have referred before to the name of Mr. Henry Reynolds, and it is not an undue play on words to say that the prosperity of Hamilton is “Anchored” to its giant dairy organisation which is known the world over.

It is an example of logical, complete and skilful rationalisation. The New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company Limited consists in point of fact of an association of over 10,000 farmers. It is farmer-owned and controlled and is the largest business of its kind in the world. A massive pile of buildings houses its executive headquarters with a staff of one hundred and sixty. The detailed story of this great concern is however too long to give here. Figures are seldom picturesque, but this company's output last season reached the remarkable figure of 64,349 tons. It owns or controls its own box making factories, its tin manufacturing plant, and it operates its own coal mines. It founded and operates the Challenge Phosphate Company, now the largest artificial manure factory in the world and it concerns itself with the bacon industry, pig raising, and indeed every activity allied to the dairy industry.

Besides the making of butter and cheese, it manufactures, inter alia, two great food product lines. Its Skim Milk Powder used to improve bread making is a highly concentrated food essence of nutritive value, and “Ankoria” Baby Food is a commodity whose value is attested by rapidly growing sales. A London office is maintained.

“Anchor” was an inspirational name to typify this great achievement's standard of goods.

We may be proud of this model creation of the brains and hands of New Zealanders. Here is co-operation in its real sense and rationalisation in its highest degree of economic efficiency. Rabid competition has been replaced by co-ordination of effort. Quality as a single aim can be pursued here, for the days are gone for ever when a supplier, reproved for poor milk could say, “Oh, very well, I'm going elsewhere;” the opposition factory three miles down the road no longer exists. Here in this great concern we have the fine example of a multitude of men of an occupation held in common, disciplining themselves for the common good and the national benefit.

The management has an unbroken history of efficiency; its financial strength is impregnable to-day, and its counting house, insurance, and general business aids to farmers are models of common sense and helpfulness. The New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company Ltd. is a constituent factor in the well being not only of Hamilton and the Waikato but of the whole Dominion.

However, it must be remembered that the Waikato is not wholly given up to the changing of grass into butter and cheese. It is a sheep grazing country as well, and it is also typically suitable for the raising of thoroughbred animals, sheep, cattle, pigs and horses.

I have Vice-regal authority for the statement that New Zealand is destined to be the thoroughbred farm for the whole world; all that is required being human attainments. I visited the Hillcrest Stud of Mrs. Gaine Carrington where this factor is in evidence. She and her sons are carrying on the tradition of breeding knowledge and skill which is inherited from the great founder of the stud. Here is the best possible example of the fact that New Zealand has the gifts of rich soil, mild climate, gentle rains, and, indeed everything to make an equine paradise. The yearlings running about are like kittens. Hunting Song is of course, a household word wherever racing men congregate or sporting talk is made. He is our country's leading sire for these many years. He is docile and intelligent, and as one bystander said with a direct glance at me “he has more sense than the average sporting writer.”

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It is hard for me to write of Baffles, the latest importation with the sobriety required in the “Railways Magazine.” He is a son of the famous Blandford and is one of those streamlined, flawlessly shaped thoroughbreds, which only Old England gives us. He stood like a tenor to have his picture taken and like his mate, Hunting Song, is full of high intelligence.

Hamilton itself was lighting up for the Coronation festivities and we looked in at the Winter Show. This modest name is used for a great annual industrial exhibition and a show of primary production.

The new Bledisloe Hall must be seen to be believed and for five days and five night this combination of fair, industrial exhibition, horticultural display and educational display is thronged by visitors from all over the Dominion.

It is a show window for this fortunate province and fortunate capital.

Let Hamilton folk count their blessings. Their welfare is founded on the firmest of rocks, and the outlook is rosy with promise.

“Don't cram a new pipe with tobacco and smoke it right out,” writes “Old Smoker,” in a Melbcurne paper, “if subjected to intense heat the bowl, until protected by a layer of carbon, is very liable to crack; knocking a pipe against something hard to get the ashes out, and lighting up from the flame of a candle, should also be avoided.” Correct, Sir! But how about the baccy? If loaded with nicotine, (as it often is) a pipe quickly fouls, necessitating constant scraping until the bowl's worn thin as a sixpence. Impure tobacco's bad for the pipe and worse for the smoker. But why smoke it, when you can get “toasted,” combining a fascinating flavour with a delicious bouquet, at any tobacconists. As for purity—there's no tobacco like it. The nicotine is absorbed by toasting and the baccy's rendered as harmless as it can possibly be. The five brands Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Cavendish, Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold, merit their immense popularity. The world can show no finer tobaccos.

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