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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 970, 17 March 1871, Page 2

THE EUTUKE POLICY OE NEW ZEALAND. An able article on the future policy of the Colony in a late Nelson Examiner concludes as follows: —

To expend money on immigration at the present time would be an act of wickedness; to add largely to the debt of the colony without ensuring a corresponding increase in the population, will be a most ruinous proceeding to all who have a stake in the country. If the course taken by the Government to better the colony be hopeless, it will be well to consider if any other is open. Instead of incurring the cost of importing large bodies of laborers, who will only on arrival add to existing burdens or drift off to other colonies, would it not be wiser and in every way more politic to find employment for the idle now amongst us, and instead of attempting to recover prosperity by a great aud startling experiment, trust to achieving it by safe and steady progress ? It is not mere labor that is wanting, but the ability to employ profitably the labor we possess. When population is increasing, and Customs Revenue decreasing, mere increase in numbers will not bring increase of wealth —probably something very different. A good deal has been said concerning the promotion of " native industries " as a means of helping the colony through its troubles. These are all very well, and they should receive every proper encouragement ; but they will not meet present necessities. The readiest and the most certain industry to which encouragement can be given, is the cultivation of land. Our observations have reference more particularly to this province, where the grown-up sons of our early settlers are looking abroad for land on which to make homes foy themselves, and find a difficulty

in getting suited. And yet there is lan<s in the province available for settlement sufficient for the wants of many hundred families. There is the valley of the Grey, with its noble river to serve as a great highway for trafftc until roads be made, awaiting settlement. If a, block of 5,000 acres in the Grey Valley was laid off in small farms, and sold to bond fide settlers on liberal terms, it would be caught up immediately, and many of the young men now leading unprofitable lives in the settled districts of the province, might with a little help in stock and implements from home become thriving settlers on their own account. One successful effort would induce others. Farmers talk gloomily of markets; but where the land is good—where heavy crops of grain can be raised, and pastures make dairy produce rich and abundant, remunerative prices will be found. Canterbury wheat and Canterbury butter sell in England at prices which pay the producer. The West Coast of this island will make the finest pastures in the world. Instead of looking to Mr Jupiter Vogel for help, we have, in this province at least, the means of restoring prosperity jf we only know how to set. about the work. The public lands were given over to the provinces that they might colonise them. Let the Provincial Governments think how this can be done. If they go on year after year neglecting their functions, and leave the country a wilderness, the. Colonial Government should resume the control of the land, and set about the. task of colonising it themselves.