The Daily Telegraph MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3013, 21 February 1881, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1881.

Dr. Newman, in a recent lecture to the working men of Wellington on the development of the resources of New Zealand, said that a diligent search among the vegetation, and. fauna, and geological strata of this country would certainly yield good results. If "we do not seek, we, in our poverty, may resemble some Esquimaux whom some Arctic travellers found frozen to death in their huts, because the winter was long, and their supplies of fuel in the shape of sticks and walrus fat had been exhausted. One by one they had died—one and all had succumbed to the chill destroyer. Their huts were built under the shelter of a cliff where coal was jutting out. Yet these poor savages slowly died because they did not know that the black rock would burn. At the outset of his lecture, Dr. Newman points to the well-known fact that the result of the huge loaDs raised by the Government, and the lesser borrowings of all our public bodies and private companies, added to an immense amount of individual indebtedness, is a steady flow of money from New Zealand to England. These payments for interest are calculated to be nearly three millions sterling per annum, besides which the colony pays about eight millions every year for imported goods. Thus New Zealand, with about half a million inhabitants, sends out of its borders, in round numbers, eleven millions every year. Dr Newman thinks that these figures predict national bankruptcy unless each one in the colony to the beat of his ability struggles to avert such a frightful catastrophe. Tbe means he proposes are three.—First, abstinence from further reckless borrowing ; second, by increasing our exports ; third, by decreasing our imports. Tbe two last can only be compassed by developing the natural resources of the country. With respect to industries, the doctor would prefer to save that which is at present neglected or wasted rather than enter into those enterprises which demand for their success large capital and cheap labor. For in young colonies, as political economists have long taught, there is abundance of land, but little labour and capital. Happily in this colony there has been so great a demand for labour that the rates of wages have almost always been so high that it would obviously be quite unprofitable for manufacturers to compete with the employers of labour at starvation wages in older countries, and capital has so many outlets that it is difficult to accumulate it in large putns. In the discussions on the establishment of local industries one point is often overlooked, viz., their sequence. They must come in certain order. As an instance, take the cultivation of beet-root for sugar, which many people are so urgent in pressing on tbe farmer Obviously, until a sugar refinery is started in at least three or four of the chief towns of the colony it would be absurd for any farmer to cultivate beet, for it would never pay to ship so bulky an article to the sugar refineries in Melbourne or Sydney, and no sugar refinery has yet been established in New Zealand, for the very simple reason, that it requires a large amount of capital (probably £150,000). When sugar refineries exist it will pay to grow beet. Uoal is a striking instance, unless coal is cheaply produced it would by very untvise to start any one of a number of industries in which coal is largely consumed. One of the chief causes of the industrial supremacy of England and Scotland has been the abundance, and therefore the cheapness of easily obtainable coal. See what a leading part coal takes in all manufactures, in the production of iron, copper, and other ores, in ship building, in all kinds of machinery, and thinking overthis, contrast the price of coal all over England with the price of coal anywhere in New Zealand, except at. the pit's mouth. Until coal is more cheaply landedin our chief townsour manfactures, as a whole, cannot flourish. The development of our coal mines is an industry which the government might more profitably undertake than the laying of many a railway line, aud money spent on rendering more accessible certain of our best coal beds, would be far better spent than in wasting £100,000 on a useless and soon deserted water-race. Dγ Newman then goes on to show how the colony might decrease its imports and insrease its exports by saving that which is now thrown away. He says that one of the most startling facts that will present itselt to any thoughtful arrival in the colony is our universal, our frightfully extravagant waste. . Everywhere are evidences of it. With thousands of large cattle, and tens of thousands of sheep dying in this colony, the vast bulk of the bones are allowed to go to waste, whilst in 1879 we imported bone-dust to the value of £24,000, and in addition quantities of lamp-black, phosphorous, &c. But this part of the <

doctor's subject is too large to treat of in this article, and we shall, therefore, refer to it on another occasion.