The Dunstan Times. Beneath the Rule of Men entirely just the pen is mightier than the sword FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1871.

Dunstan Times, Issue 462, 24 February 1871, Page 2

The Dunstan Times. Beneath the Rule of Men entirely just the pen is mightier than the sword FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1871.

Ix may be quite logical to argue that population is a certain source of wealth and indispeusibly necessary to the prosperity of any country, more especially a newly settled one; but circumstances alter cases. This holds good with respect to New Zealand. We have no large extent of unoccupied lands in the interior in figurative language “only waiting to be tickled wi'-h the plough." What really exists, is in small patches, while the means of communication between it and the seaboard arc, without almost any exception, so difficult tint the whole of the value of the produce would be absorbed in taking it to a market. Another and an insurmountable difficulty crops up. After leaving the seaboard some thirty miles, owing to the natural configuration of the country, the rainfall very materially decreases; while the character of the laud is not so good ; and, unless the farmer were protected by high prices, the cultivation of the soil would be upon a very small scale. In Otago, Southland, and Canterbury this is invariably the case, and plainly perceptible to any observant traveller, who finds, as he leaves the sea-coast, he leaves cultivation behind him. The business of the farmer in the interior cannot, for these reasons, be extended beyond'the wants of local consump. tion; and, even had we railways, it would o'AJy be in exceptional seasons that wheat could be exported from the interior and shipped at a profit. At the present time breadstuff's would have to bo at famine prices to pay a farmer to send grain to the seaboard from the AVanaka or the Wakatip; am 1 , when we take the questions cf drought and the porous nature of the soil into consideration, ev=n if we possessed railway communication, he could not cornpieto with the growers

at the Taieri,jTokomairiro, or Oamaru, leaving out altogether the fact that he pays so much more for imported articles of consumption and materials. To Introduce immigrants upon a large scale Into New Zealand, themeans of employing them must first bo provided. No hundreds of families imported from Sweden or Norway, *and located on could develop its forest and fishery resources unless,they were possessed of or were provided with capital; nor could Cornish miners develop the coal mines and granite quarries of Patterson’s and Chalky Inlets for the same reason. To import these people and turn them loose would ho turning them out to starve. The natural wealth of New Zealand is certainly great, but it cannot be developed in a hurry, and, like most advantages of a solid nature, before we can enjoy them, a long probation of patient industry must be gone through. The

population will undoubtedly admit of

a large increase ; but it must be done gradually. At the present moment,

beyond farm laborers and female ser-

vants, there ia no scarcityjof labor. All other branches of industry are pretty well supplied, and any increase of other than these classes would result in harm. Nothing wouldfbe more injudicious? than to import a lot of people for whom we could not find employment. We should not only be giving the colony a bad name as a field for immigration, but be bringing out people from homo to settle elsewhere at our expense; for, most assuredly, when immigrants find, on landing upon our shores, that they have been deceived, they will take the first and most convenient opportunity of departing. To increase the population there is no better means than to make the country attractive. Then people will come of their own accord, and will not grumble because their bread is not aheady buttered, but be prepared to butter it themselves.. One million expended upon the construction of roads and bridges equally throughout New Zealand would, in reality, import as many immigrants as were the money especially applied to that purpose, and the same result would attend the expenditure of the 200,000/. for water supp'y to the goldfields. Here we have two capital immigration agents, while the supply and demand for labor would be proportionately equalised. The country is prosperous just now, but how long will it continue so if we indiscriminately introduce a pauper population 1 The only advantage that can be derived from such a system of immigration is that we shall more equally divide, per head, the heavy indebtedness of the colony; but this would only be an apparent benefit, although itmight look well upon paper. In practice it would be equivalent to asking a lot of poor people to take upon themselves a share of our debts who in reality were puzzled how to live. If the present population cannot discharge its liabilities, an extensive pauper immigration cannot assist it, although it may assist the sanguine views ol the supporters of the Colonial Traasurei’s financial scheme. Many people in New Zealand lately appear to have gone mad about the United States of America, and travellers by the Pacific Railway to Europe have written a great deal about the wonderful progress of that country, which they attribute almost solely to immigration. In a measure, this may be true ; but, as we said before, circumstances alter cases, and this ia our case : Our territory is not so extensive; we have no means of readily absorbing a large additional population—such would only prove a burthen instead of a blessing ; our’s is only a narrow strip of air island, not much over one hundred and fifty miles across at its broadest part, while the further we proceed inland the greater are its physical difficulties, A railway from sea to sea would here be piece of unmitigated folly and extravagance. Supposing that a railroad really did exist between Dunedin and Martin’s Bay, there would not be sufficient traffic to pay for fuel for the engine. No world’s highway exists between these two places, as is the case between San Francisco and New York, nor are there ever likely to be any densely populated settlements upon the line of route. Martin’s Bay leads to nowhere, and Dunedin is comparatively in the same position, while as to the former it is a wretched out-of-the-way hole; its population is daily dwindling away, abandoning the lands already taken up because it cannot find the means to live. Many went

there jvith considerable sums of money i and were prepared far hard work and a rough life ; but uo field existed for the display of their energies, and they were compelled to beat a retreat, the settlement being reduced to some fifteen inhabitants. Supposing that an ill-assorted lot of immigrants had been landed there, the result would have been positive starvation. Martin’s Bay may in time become a place of some importance, but that cannot be the case until a demand exists for its peculiar productions or a remunerative goldfield is found in its vicinity. The poor deluded people who went there found out, to their cost, what they should previously have known—that land is of no value unless a market exists for its produce. Supposing its rivers did abound with fish, there were none to consume them. Its forests of timber were equally valueless failing a demand; and there being no back country to occupy chat could even be applied to pastoral purposes, it therefore happens that, unless immigrants are prepared to become so many Robinson Crusoes, there is no field for them on the west coast of Otago. To materially increase the population of the goldfields it would be necessary to increase the water supply. There is plenty of gold, but the means of obtaining it are wanting. Water is the only available mechanical power in this case, and the efforts of the miner are powerless without it Could the water supply to the gold fields be proportionately increased the population would be doubled, and that without any expenditure upon the score of immigration. New Zealand may be ever so much more prosperous than the United States of America, but it can only be taken advantage of by a few. Its area is too limited forex tensive settlement, nor is the country adapted to contain a large population unless a considerable proportion could find employment in manufactories. However ample and varied .our resources may be, circumstances place a limit upon their applicability. This cannot be removed by an indiscriuiisystem of immigration. All we can do is to make the country as attractive ns possible by legitimate means, and wherever there is room to live some one will be ■ sure to ollow his way in.