All the evidence points to the East Cape as one of the least dynamic and one of the most problematical regions of New Zealand. The slow increase in the number of ewes, the small labour force employed in manufacturing, and the migration of Europeans from the rural areas are all depressing in their implications. The absence of any marked increase in the area of land occupied and cultivated is not, however, to be regarded as an unfavourable trend. Unquestionably some land quite unsuited to farming has been exploited, and its retirement from commercial use is the only sound agronomic policy. Obviously the region contains a few highly favoured agriculture localities and it seems inevitable that during the coming decades a sharper differentiation will occur between the more favoured and the less favoured districts.

by Samuel Harvey Franklin, B.COM.GEOG., M.A.(BIRMINGHAM), Senior Lecturer, Geography Department, Victoria University of Wellington.