NEW ZEALAND'S FUTURE.

Hokitika Guardian, 27 February 1918, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND'S FUTURE.

WEST COAST CITED. DEVELOPMENT OF ITS RESOURCES. “The future of this country will depend on two things,” remarked the Hon. G. W. Russell at a gathering of Wellington's early settlers. tf)ne, liesaid, was the extension of settlement upon lands that were now waste .and unoccupied; and the other was upon the development of an industrial population within our country. In any ef fort to establish a producing population in New Zealand we. must have two things; wo must have the first place the land and in the second place it was necessary to have the right of men to go upon it. After these two objects were secured there should be no difficulty in the way of the Government of the day (whatever Government it be) in providing the men set tied upon the land with the necessary capital to allow them to obtain the wealth out of the soil by means of their labour Take any of tho farming districts tributary to Wellington, and it would be found that these places were not settled by ricli men, but by poor men who were given the opportunity and were fugal and thrifty, and turned out firstclass and prosperous .settlers. (Applause);

Continuing, the Minister recalled that our early settlers included many Scandinavian and other foreigners who had made good in every seyse of the word. “If we are to take four place as a nation in the future,’’ proceeded the speaker, “it cannot he done hy saying that we are going to close our doors to population. We must open our doors to population.

As to the population the country was capable of carrying when developed along the lines ho had suggested AH Russell recoiled how at one time the alluvial goldfields of the West Coast supported some 80,000 diggers. Now it was a well-known scientific fact that alluvial o-oklfields had their origin in quartz beds. These immense quartz beds, which according to science must exist on the West Const of New Zealand,! had never been found. After the war, if we are going to successfully carry the huge burdens which its advent had imposed on us, we would have to bring science to hear in order to develop our resources. We could not go on depending on frozen mutton, wool, flax and dairy produce for a living. The speaker concluded amidst an outburst of applause.