The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2247, 20 July 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 1870.

“ If a country with a surface of about “ fifteen million acres can only support “ a population of fifty thousand souls, “ then there must be something radic- “ ally wrong, either in the land itself “ or in its administration.” This sentence, which is worth pondering over, formed part of a reply given to a question put by the Select Committee of the Provincial Council ‘ f on the peti- “ tion of the unemployed.” The question naturally suggested is, Why is it that with such an area even the few settled upon it are not fully employed 1 We do not fully coincide with the conclusion arrived at that “ there must be “ something wrong, either in the laud “ or its administration ” —although, so far as the latter is concerned, there is enough to complain of. There is far too general an idea that to own a patch of laud is to make a man independent. Mr Stafford, for instance, seems to fancy that it would be an advantage to men to have small sections of from three to twelve acres. Our Colonial experience of somewhere nearly twenty years in different Colonies of Australasia, leads us to •oncoule that so far from being an advantage, in most cases it would be a drawback. We know that glowing pictures of rural happiness are given by some writers in eulogising peasant life in Belgium and Switzerland. They tell us of the garden cultivation of small farms, and of the correct habits and systematic morality of the proprietors. In fact, they toll of how much may be done to render life endurable by self-denial and cheerful toil. But they do not calculate how much more might be done at the same outlay of human labor, under more favorable* conditions to production. The descriptions given point to plenty and contentment for a limited number, without progression. Five or half-a-dozen acres kept the father and his family, and generation after generation they must keep one son and his family. Beyond this they cannot go. But that will not do in a Colony. Men without capital must have more liberty to more about if they mean to get on. They cannot be profitably tied to one spot in sparsely-populated countries, where markets for produce are fitful and uncertain; and if they find it desirable to move to another place where better wages or more constant employment is to be had, small farms, instead of a benefit, are a drag, and almost certain loss to them. But it may happen in a Colony that the land may be of the best, and the administration not defective, and yet that it cannot support more than a very limited number of inhabitants. Thus in Otago the present produce of the land is fully equal to the wants of its population, and its capability for supporting a greater number of agriculturists depends upon Avhether an outside market can be found at remunerative prices to the producer. The cause of this is not so much the price of labor in production, as the cost of labor in transit from the field to the market. The Province now wants cheap and rapid means of communication between the ports and the interior. Every man employed in constructing a railway is adding to the producing power of the country, and as truly assists in sustaining a larger population as the man who holds the plough. He is aiding in bringing good land in the far interior into immediate connection with the seaport, and thus equalising the conditions of production throughout the country. He not only thus assists in cheapening the cost of living, but in rendering labor more profitable, by providing means whereby more work may be done by the employment of the same amount of capital. When people hear of millions being borrowed for the construction of railways, they seem aghast at the thought. They seem to imagine that the amount of indebtedness is a frightful thing. So it would be for the prosecution of a Maori war. It would then be wasted —not invested and would require millions to be thrown away after it to maintain what little had been got in return. But it is different with investments in railways. Even if no revenue were derived from them, they would benefit the country. It would be rather dry to show this by abstract reasoning. Perhaps a single instance may illustrate it. We believe we are correct in stating that, between Dunedin and the Clutha, the cost of the road in repairs and maintenance, now that it is formed, has been something like .£47,000. Now on this road a load ol about three to four tons requires the labor of six horses and one man from four to six days to traverse the distance, and an equal time to return. We leave out of the question the risk of accident, the cost of wear and tear, and so on, to the horses, man, waggon, and road, and merely point out that a railway can be formed at nearly as small cost per mile as a metalled road; can be

maintained at one-tenth of the cost, and that in a few hours one small engine with two men could traverse the distance, and draw one hundred tons of goods at a fraction of the cost per ton. In order to the fullest development of the advantages of the railway system, it will be needful to adapt our locomotive appliances to the road, — a much easier process in reality than adapting our x’oads to our primitive means of locomotion.