The Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY) Tne Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. SATURDAY, MARCH. 6. 1886. AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1651, 6 March 1886, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY) Tne Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. SATURDAY, MARCH. 6. 1886. AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION.

\ Various Southern ipaptars«--areiitryang satisfactorily, to account f<jr the existing severe and prolonged depression. The -Bruce Herald oohsideta that there ate several things to be .takeajntp..,. account which are seldom mentioned -by Presidents and members of .Trades andkabom Councils and . kindred . drganisaiionsi' There is the -fact that 'ih^mafket'fifr every description of farm produce has for years been declining, and is now at a very Jow* let us trust tlie lowest, ebb, „ with the faintest, possible sign of-.-itn.T provement, and no possibility of prices ever again rising to any marked extent •r-this, coupled with the fact that iagrjh-j culturists still travel m the sauie old grooves, and place 1 nothing' m the marketsaye that' which barely reinu negates them by its sale, is one prime factor m the depression ; Another. ' is the low price of wool-^aV price from which it cannot appreciably', recover..^: Perhaps, however, the most impprtaot/cause of all the trouble.lies iinrt^yimmense .disproportion between town and country-popu-lation, between the producers : and the distributors, the industri^^ol^es , ; and the prof eßsi6hal-61Ssses?:£iiet"'the : country prosper as it.will (remarks our Southera, contemporary )j tlet the agricultural and pastoral interest be _as, the.' seyp.a well -favoured "and fat kine m; -Pharaoh's dream, the commercial andyprofessional interests may besltkeried toHhe seven illfavoured and lean kine_.(only that there are- -more thanrseyeo, they ajreinot m equal prOportioiis) Wliokte up the "weUfavoured and fat';kine i; v.THe similitude lacks too m, another ..point, for we are |old that ; when the, lean kine had . detoured the tat ones,' they' were just as lean and ill-favoured as beforej but 'it cannot -be 'said that the non-producing clans, whoj.absorh the bulk of the earn-i ings of the other classes,^ are none the better, for they thrive.,, grow wealthy, »nd enjoy every luxury, while the poor producer has but a hard and 'sorry time of it. This is a state "of affairs over which" Parliament has little, .i£ any po\yer. They will right, themselves m the long run. Without doubt -our debt is .enormously 'Heavy;- the'/iheidence = of taxation does not fall so equally as could be desired^ ;hor will it until: tinkering is stopped, and a wholly new, ; scheme .devised ; but it is very questionable if any action taken by , Parliament can be i ex pjected to set the'' country : on the hi^h road '(to cohim'eroial prosperity. .' ; Only. the people themselves, aided" of course by Nature, oan accomplish "tKis. Energy, thrift, and probity, with a little less selfishness, would do m6re than whole libraries of Land Acts, or millions of loans, and taxation. -