The Dairy Industry in Tara naki.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 55, 2 September 1897, Page 2

The Dairy Industry in Tara naki.

I (a correspondent of the Canterbury Preae) bad some convert ation with the member for Hawera, Mr Majruirs, recently at Wellington, the details of which might be interesting to your readers. He ia in Wellington at present upon buaineas connected with the dairy industry of Taranaki and the northern parts of this provincial district. He soys that the output of butter and cheese for the present year will be very much greater than that of any previous year, possibly twice at great. Tbe people in the dairy factories, and the farmers who supply them with milk, are hopeful of ever greater results from year to year. Tbe industry has raved the price of milk in some places from 2£d to 4d a qnart. The amount of benefit it confera upon a diatrict only a farmer or dairyman can adequately appreciate. The general i>ublic, he say«, has very little conception of the extent and value of the industry. There ia no kind of enterprise in tha colony which premises such a great reward to the in. duetrious and the intelligent farmer ; but, he adds, several of tbe districts are heavily weighted in other respects. Many of the men who have bean sent by the Government on to the land as settlers ara not settle's, and are not likely to become settlers in any legitimate sense of the word. In the first place, they have not sufficient land nor sufficient means to make a decent living out of it. A hundred acres is not enough. They are, he affirms, working a dead borse from the time they go upon ibe land until they leave it. Men, he siys, are sent in for bush felling. They are paid 30s an acre. That ia 10s more than ia paid to an ordinary contractor. Orasa seed is given to them, and they are paid an extra price for sowing it. But they do not become permanent tettlera. They only etay on the land as long aa it auits them. Thay baye no capital, and they can mak« no permanent improvement. If due care hnd been exennsed they could have bean placed in such * position that they would get employment from welN to do farmers to the peraiauent advantage of both. As the ana of laDd is not sufficient, aud employment cannot te had to help Hie new settler in overcoming tbe difficulties of his first efforts, he looks forward to an etcape from the place as the only relief available. So, in course of time, be leaves the land and abandons the idea of establishing a home upon it. All the old and successful settlers, he maintains, are anxious that soi table settlors should come into new districts, but districts are handicapped by incompetent or unsuitable settlement. Every new failure i« an additional burthen. Nevertheless < Mr Maguire says) the country is coing ahead Everything in liia neighbourhood has a rosy aspect, Evory new industry helps all round, if it only gets fair play from i;bose who have the power, if th.iy have the will, to give something like substantial encourage* meat.