CORRESPONDENCE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3744, 16 July 1883, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE RABBIT NUISANCE

ITo the Editor or the Daily Telegraph. J Sin, —The ruin with which tho rabbit threatens New Zealand induces me to _ lay before you the following returns obtained from the Registrar- Gen oral's Office : — % % Land in Value &g< g Artificial Sheep. Wool o w H Grasses. Exported £ g >* :3 I £ £ 1871 1,181,369 11,704,853 2,832,695 1,878 1875 1,434,082 3,398,150 3,913 1876 1,819,881 3,395,816 4,118 1877 2,202,640 3,658,93S 8,638 1878 2,G08,83 ( j!13,069,338 3,292,807 33,460 1879 2,897,911 3,126,439 16,759 1880 3,341,289 3,169,300 66,976 1881 3,556,949 12,985,085 2,909,700 84,774 1882 3,938,069 3,118,554 88,725 1883 4,322,562 A glance afc the above will show that our offorts in tho direction of increasing tho products of tho country have not been successful, and that some tremendous influence has been working against vis. What do we find? An increase in artificial grasses from 1874 to 1881 of 2,375,580 acres, an incroase in the number of sheep of 1,280,232 and an incroase in the value of ■wool of £75,065.

What might havo been expected to bo the result, had no enemy been working against us", may be stated thus :—An increase in artificial grasses of 2,375,580 acres, estimating the carrying capacity at three Hheep to an aero (allowing the country in its natural state to carry one sheep to two acres) ought to be followed by an increase of 5,938,950 sheep, and tho increased value of export of wool, at 4s 9d per head, would be £1,68-1,608.

The returns would then stand thus : — Land in Arti- Sheep. "Value Wool ficial grass. Exported. 1871 .. 1,181,369 11,704,853 £2,832,695 1881 .. 3,556,045 18,924,035 4,491,405

Here then we have an actual loss of £1,584,608 ?

The fourth column of the returns shows that in in 1874 wo exported £1878 worth of rabbit ekius, wliilst in 1882 the export rose to £88,725, showing , an increase of £86,847. The New Zealand Agricultural Company's yearly statement shows an ussctof JEs3oa Is 9d for rabbit skins, but the cost of destroying the animal which yield those skins was no loss than £8715 3s 9d.

But now let us come to tho loss by depreciation, occasioned by the rabbit, in the value of tho lands of the Statoin Otago and Southland alone. It is very difficult to estimate, with any degree of accuracy, from any published statistics; but if the Government deem it worth while to order the calculation, it might easily be arrived at. At any rate, we know that 500,000 acres in tho Wakatipu district cannot be re-leased at all—one half becauso it is too poor and rough, and tho othor half on account of the rabbit. Then, with the exception of one or two runs, at the late salo of runs in the boginning of the year an average of lOjd per sheep, upset price, only was obtained, instead of tho average of Is <Jd per head obtained jwcviously, showing a loss to tho country of lOjd per head. It is surely within tho mark to say that the State directly loses some £200,000 a year by this alone. The loss to the revenue, so far as it is derived from thu Property Tax, the loss occasioned by the country being a TTastc instead of supporting a tax-paying population, the loss of wool exports, the loss in value of pastoral country, the loss in annual rentals, the loss in vain endeavors to doorcase tho evils of tHe rabbit curso, added togethor, will, I am sure, amount in the aggregate to more than the whole of the interest to tho outside creditor, which according to the Colonial Treasurer's statement, has readied £1,700,000. Go on as we are now doing, and we shsll be a ruined community in tan years ! The mischief •wrought injures us all: Hospital endowments, Harbor Board endowments, Educational and University endowments, the shipping , interest, merchants, tradesmen, laborers —all arc affected.

I read in a newspaper that Mr M'Kcnzic, M.H.R. for Moeraki, waxing warm on tliu rabbit question during , his speech on the Addrcss-in-Reply, went so far as to say that "he would not be surprised if this rabbit question had the effect of turning; out the Government, an expression of opinion at which Minister* are reported to huve laughed merrily."—Otago Witness, June 30. One of the most unfortunate phases of the rabbit question is the incredulity with which the foreboding's of so-called alarmists have hitherto been treated, and hence, I suppose, the "merry" laugh of the Ministers ; but, to ray mind, the rabbit question is one of the gravest of the day. It is posgiblo that exception may ho taken from 9<itH9 of »y deductions from tho above ro

turns, but I submit that I have made out a sufficiently strong case to show that it behoves the Government to do its utmost to check the pest that threatens the country with utter ruin, and which now finds a plfice of refuge on the lands of the Crown. Tho evil to-day is great, in the future it promises to bo overwhelming. I hold, then, that no sum is too great to _offer as a reward, in this and other countries, for the extermination of the scourge : no sum too large to be annually devoted to destroying tho rabbit, and no tax could bo moro just than ono levied for this purpose. United action and the adoption of proper methods are necessary, and if thoy be not resorted to soon it is impossible to estimate to what extent tho evil will have spread in the course of a few years.

As I iim desirous to interest, without wearying, you, I will not now touch upon the means 'that might bo adopted for the eradication of the evil, but will reserve this for a future letter. In the meantime I venture to hope that you will givetho subject that serious consideration which, from its gravity, it deserves. —I am, kc, 0. BE V. Tf.SCIIEMAKEK.

Note.—l have assumed that there has been no great increase between 187*1 and 18S1 in the number of horned cattle, but on tho other hand I have not taken the root crops into account, and these would either feed the increased number of cattle or make the loss in sheep more apparent.

Nelson, July 0, ISB3