THE MAORI MESSENGER. Auckland, March 25, 1852.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume 4, Issue 85, 25 March 1852, Page 2

THE MAORI MESSENGER. Auckland, March 25, 1852.

There is one point, at this particular juncture, to which we would fain draw the attention of our native agriculturists, and that is, to the extraordinary fluctuations'which take place, from time <o time, in the com market;—now raising the price of grain to an unnatural and exorbitant amount, and now depressing it much below its reasonable value. Many causes contribute to raise the market price of grain. No doubt, a failure of the harvest in one's own country, or a demand for supplies, in consequence of the necessities of other countries, nre the principal causes. But there are other and not less powerful causes; and these are the operations of what ia called the corn trade;—that is to say, of men who deal largely in corn, and who, by keen nnd inquisitive watchings of the harvests of their own and other countries, and by calculating the store of food in the various granaries of this bread-eating world, endeavour to regulate, and to a certain extent they do contrive to regulate, the price of that great essential of life. The corn trade has been one almost coeval with the creation of the world. Immense fortunes have been lost and won in carrying it out. But the curse pronounced in Scripture against those who unjustly laise the price of corn to the poor, appears in general to follow those who hoard up corn to make an extortionate profit from the necessities of their fellow men. No traffic is more cdious, and none more uncertain than that which is < rented by n monopoly of corn, for he who n f'.H'.'s to sell at a fair price is frequently .-in priced by nn immense and unexpected influx of grain from other quarters, so that eventually he is compelled to sc'l, :iot at a ready nnd reasonable profit, but at a late and ruinous loss. Vi'e have thus cursorily alluded to the corn trade, because in June and July Inst year, w hen the discovery of gold in New South Wales occasioned a brief demand for grain, the rrice of the commodity rose so high in New Zealand that some little inclination was manifested to speculate in ■Mpp corn trade here. Men <ast their eyes about to see from what market supplies of corn cw;U! hr drawn, and not being able to an. they held their wheat for :>■ y\-\v.% n:.»r:.i:t. However, the supply in

New Zealand was much too inconsiderable to deserve attention ; and, after a few months, prices returned to something like their usml level Mark, however, the effect which the corn trade has had upon the merchants of Van Diemcn's Land. At Launceston the corn dealers were possessed of very large supplies. These, in June and July, they could have rcndily disposed of at large prices ; but they graspingly continued to hold them. They knew that the Sydney market was comparatively bare. They also knew that corn was required atj the Cape. They imagined that the people ol New Zealand did not possess a sufficiency for themselves; and, in the confident hope that they alone had the means of dispensing food, they speculated upon selling it at famine prices. To their great consternation, Hour from California and America, and rice from India, poured into Sydney, so that, instead of'realising fortunes, numbers of the Van Diemcn's Land corn dealers have bepn entirely ruined. This has beeiij the case over and over again, in every qua'tei* of the world in times of real or imagined scarcity. Corn has been hoarded until corn from abroad lias poured in to ruin the avaricious hoarder. In the year 1834, from ss. per bushel, wheat suddenly started to lis, a bushel in Van Piemen's Land, and continued to leap up to 165., 205., and 255. a bushel. At the latter price, a miller oflared to purchase the considerable stock of a far mer, who, however, declined, saying he would wait till it reached 30s. a bushel* The farmer kept lib wheat. In a few weeks the panic subsided, and corn was not only reduced to its ordinary price, but wa» with difficulty saleab'e even at that. Last season, our native agriculturists obtained large prices for their grain. This year, in consequence of extensive importations from abroad, the prices will be low. It is to be hoped, notwithstanding, that they will not withhold their harvests in the liopt of forcing a higher* price. If they do, they will greatly impede the prosperity of their country, and materially imp \ir their own individual resources. They have neither a sufficiency of corn, nor have they yet become sufficiently known to the world to exirciso the slightest influence upon the corn trade of Australia. Should they injudiciously endeavour to keep back their supplies, they may damage their country and injure themselves, because the slightest appearance of necessity will be certain to send a glut of foreign corn into the New Zealand market. A prudent farmer will never seek to become a corn dealer. He will always be content to sell at n moderate price, because he kno%vs that the command of money is essential to is prosperity, and that small profits and quick returns arc the s'ow but certain means of fortune. *' Tell a farmer, in the sowing season, that if he has not '->() acres more corn he must (pay £SO, and the seed would be in the'ground within a week." Now, if this be truth and wisdom, in an old and wealthy country, it shows how necessary industry and promptitude arc in a young and struggling one. Every shilling drawn from New Zealand in payment for foreign grown food retards lu*i* progress, and impoverishes her people. If her native husbnndmen, in iiopo of distant gnin, should rashly seek to hoard their corn they will thereby show themselves the enemies of their country. Native and European, the ardent desire of all should lie io speed the plough, and to make the country one abounding with corn. Hitherto it has not grown a sufficiency to feed its own inhabitants. '* The primary question with every country,'' says a celebrated English writer, "' is its capacity to subsist its own inhabitants. If not largo enough to grow its own corn, which ought to be'iuado evident, then its qualifications for independence are to be questioned, and its (it-

ness for the residence of a nation to be doubted." New Zealand is sufficiently large, and sufficiently fertile nof only to subsist lier own inhabitants, but to become the granary of the surrounding colonics. All that is necessary is to till the land and dispose of its fruits :—do but that and yenr by year, corn, culture, and national prosperity will largely and rapidly increase.