PROPOSED AGRICULTURAL CONFERENCE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XIII, Issue 560, 16 March 1868, Page 3

PROPOSED AGRICULTURAL CONFERENCE.

j f * ’’ora 11.0 Witness, "9th X’cbruary.) .The importance of the proposed Con- 1 jference of delegates from the various Agricultural and Pastoral Societies, appointed to take place on the 7th of! April, can scarcely be over-rated. For some time back, all practical men have felt a difficulty in devising plans for profitably cultivating the land. This was a crisis in the history of the Colony that, in the natural progression of events, was sure, sooner or later, to arise. It was inevitable that a period must come when the supply would equal the demand, for both agricultural and pastoral produce. It has been the case in every Colony in which an abnormal stimulus has been given to production and the influx of population, through the discovery of gold. California has passed through it, New bouth Wales and Victoria have also gone through the ordeal, and now Otago has to battle with the difficulty. But other causes than the progression of events have been at work to give a stimulus to pastoral pursuits. Colonies are naturally producers of raw material. The land, unoccupied for ages, presents the fairest field for industry and the investment of capital. There is neither population nor material at hand for the prosecution of manufactures. Tbe wool produced must, therefore, be sent to a country where it can be quickly and readily converted into clothing or other material, and distributed throughout the world. Were progress uninterrupted by wars and rumors of wars, could Commerce go on expanding naturally to supply the world’s wants, in proportion to the extention of the means of communication, prices would not be liable to sudden and great differences. But it is not so. The American war, by its disturbing effect on the supply of cotton, had a marked influence on the price of wool. Combined with other causes, it raised and maintained the price for some years, and thus gave an undue stimulus to production. More

*hau probably, prices would have been sustained much longer had not the European troubles followed so closely on the cessation of the American war. It would bo going over ground frequently trodden to trace minutely the difficulty; fear, panic, extensive fail ures, and bad trade. To these adverse influences the present depressed state of the wool market is chiefly owing. ■lt is under such circumstances that the Conference will have to meet, and to .discuss the hindrances that now pre-i sent themselves to profitable and ex-j tended pastoral and agricultural pursuits. There are already indications! on the part of the runholders that they do not intend to let things take their course, but that, by improved methods of preparing wool for export, they will endeavour to retain the past rate of profits, although the prices of wool exported under the old system are so much lower. This is the right spirit iu which to meet the difficulty ; and, if successful, when, in the coarse of j events, manufacturing and commercial I activity are resumed in the Old World, hot only will the Colony have been saved from the evils attendant upon low prices, but it will reap the benefit of the additional value given to its produce by those improvements. There is another feature connected with the production of wool which augurs well | Tor the future of New Zealand : the Provincial Government offers a bonus for the introduction into Otago of the woollen manufacture. This is decidedly the right course. A bonus dificrs widely from the folly of a protective duty. It is a fixed and definite sum paid for securing a specified benefit. The tax falls equally upoh every individual in the community in proportion to his payments to the revenue, and every penny of the money goes directly into the pockets of those whom it was intended to benefit, iu return for the advantage reaped by the Province from their enterprise; and when the manufacture becomes so firmly established as to need no further help, the assistance is withdrawn. We look forward hopefully to the future of the pastoral interest.

The agricultural interest lias also been depressed. It is by no means certain that different crops from those customarily raised could not with advantage be produced. It is very certain that the methods hitherto followed have been most primitive, and that there isgreatroom forimprovement It is with all such subjects that the Conference will have to deal. Indifference to communicate with each other has marked both the agricultural and pastoral classes. It is to be hoped that the result of the Conference will be to show the advantage of association.