TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 1877.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 70, 20 March 1877, Page 2

TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 1877.

Nothing tends more to develope the resources of a country than the means of comparatively cheap and rapid transit. Where these are wanting, land, which, would otherwise be worked with profit, is allowed to lie untilled, and mineral wealth remains in the earth, instead of being turned to advantage and gain. The reason for this is plain. Where there are no means of rapid and cheap conveyance to enable the fanner to bring his produce into market, it will not pay to grow it, neither will it pay the capitalist to work the coal seams and other minerals because the cost of transit to a market will be so great he will be unable to compete with the importer. On the other hand, where great facilities for carriage exist, either by rail or steamboat, the resources of a country thus favoured, are rapidly developed, and its material prosperity is ensured. Our American cousins are well aware ofthis, and accordingly we find almost every part of their vast plains traversed by the iron horse, and their rivers literally alive with steamers conveying the produce of the interior to a home market or to a seaport for export. If means of cheap, regular, and rapid conveyance are necessary to ensure the prosperity of a country where the produce is of a kind that will keep good for months, how much more necessary do they become, where tlie produce is of a perishable kind. In Akaroa and tlie adjacent bays large quantities of fruit are grown, and this used formerly to form a considerable export to the southern ports, Timaru alone taking a large quantity. Luring the last season, however, the export of fruit has fallen off, and for a very good reason, namely, the want of regular conveyance to tiie market, Formerly this service used to be performed by the small intercoastal steamers, which plied between Dunedin and Lyttelton, calling regularly once or twice a week at Akcroa and other intermediate ports. .Now, these vessels have ceased to run inconsequence of the opening of the railway from Lyttelton to Oiiina.ru, and, although., some of the large intereoaslai steamers call at Akaroa they do not do so often enough to be of any service to the fruit growers. What then is to be done? It is true that when the railway to Akaroa is completed it will be amply sufficient for all purposes, but there is an old proverb, " that whilst the grass is groAving the steed is starving," and so it will be with the fruit growers of Akaroa, unless they put their shoulders to the wheel and endeavour to help themselves over this difficulty. What i« really wanted, is a steamer rather larger than ' the Akaroa' running daily between Akaroa and Lyttelton and calling at tlie various Bays en route. Such a vessel would at once connect Akaroa and its surrounding districts with tlie Canterbury plains, and, by rail, with the more distant places of Timaru, Oamaru and Dunedin, and the.produce of the Peninsula, whether fruit, cheese, or timber would at all times find ready and quick conveyance to market. The passenger traffic would, we believe, be by no means inconsiderable, and there would be a large sum to be received for freight from the plains to Akaroa. In order to bring about so desirable a result, we would suggest the formation of a limited liability company, say, with a capital ■of ten thousand pounds. We believe that a few energetic persons with an active manager would not only be able to start such a company, but would float the shares successfully ; their sale need not be confined to the Peninsula,

should take a much wider field. Let however the inhabitants of Akaroa and the surrounding districts remember that " God helps them who help themselves."