The Manawatu Times. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1877.

Manawatu Times, Volume II, Issue 38, 28 February 1877, Page 2

The Manawatu Times. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1877.

The borrowing proclivities of Sir Julius Yogel are to New Zealand what the gold fields were to Australia ; both have furnished occupation and promoted immigration and both have proved a vast impulse of progression. But gold-mining affords a precarious prosperity at best and when the supply of gold failed, Australia found itself m possession of a surplus population, which for many years made labor cheap and immigration unpopular. For a long time colonial affairs were m a state of stagnation and depression, which continued until the colonies had time to energise their latent forces. As soon as colonial industries became established on a sure footing, then, only, the colonies throve surely. New Zealand is now passing through an ordeal similar to that which depressed the energies of her sister colonies years ago. The money that has flowed into her coffers gave her for a time a fast and feverish life. The aim was to spend that money m a way such as would develope natural resources. Railways, roads, and bridges were therefore constructed, but for the time being these works partly defeated their own object, for while good wages were to be earned at public works the labouring man would not settle upon the land which these works were intended to prepare for his use. In other words, the execution of public works proved, m

as far as the laboring classes were concerned, inimical to private enterprise. When these works ceased, the equipoise of industry and population was at once disturbed and the latter became m excess. To this want of balance is easily to be*traced the great depression that exists throughout the country, and that will necessarily exist for some time to come. It is a condition that must have been foreseen and accepted as a necessary fact of the future when the policy that now governs us was initiated. The country has been suddenly thrown upon its own resources and although it foresaw it was not prepared for the change. It is m the position of a youth who has been for some time subsisting luxuriously on a father's bounty ; left suddenly to shift for himself his necessities are for a time urgent, but eventually prove the means of bringing out his own powers of selfsupport. Although this community now suffers from evils which can be traced directly to our borrowed capital and our immigration policy, yet few thinking men are so short-sighted as to suppose that borrowed capital was not what we wanted and that immigration is not still a desideratum, and the talisman by which New Zealand will realise a great future. And our present distress may be not unreasonably taken inversely as a guage of our future prosperity. If a system of immigration be now vigorously pursued our difficulties for the time being will assuredly increase, but so will the measure o± our prosperity m time to come. Had the stagnation that now exists occurred before Sir Julius had borrowed his four millions it would have been an alarming symptom and a national disaster; but occurring as it does now that fair means of transit have been established through the country, it is simply a crisis ushering m a fresh — and there is every reason to believe — a pleasant chapter of our history. But although we foresee a bright future for the country, there is yet a good stretch of cloud before that future is reached. We have just lost the bladders by which we were supported and there will be a severe struggle before we discover that we can swim. The higher grades of the community have depended more or less on the labourer and he has felt first the shock of reverse and sent the vibration right on through the community. Trade has become dull, jobbers and speculators are waiting m suspense to see how things will drift. The watchword seems to be "Bad Times". Now this is precisely the condition of things required to develope the country. Extraneous assistance has been good m its place and has so far done its work, and now it is the pressure of bad times consequent upon the withdrawal of this assistance that will, more than anything else, make people avail themselves of their privileges. In a country so sparsely peopled as this is, there is not sufficient scope for much public enterprise and private enterprise as well; therefore, when the one ceases the other is very likely to commence. And we confidently predict that private enterprise will soon take the field from sheer force of circumstances. The labourer will find himself metamorphosed into a small farmer and the capitalist into a factory owner, and why ? Because it is the one climax to which things have been for years shaping and which present exigencies render imperative. The farmermust make a beginning, and what time so suitable as when he has nothing better to do. His difficulties will be great whether he knows it or not, but face them he must. In the settlement of Winchecarribee, m Australia, which has been of late years taken up from the primeval forest, the free selectors subsisted through the two first winters of their tenure mainly on potatoes, but now they form one of the most thriving communities m the country. Both the immigrant and the colonist too often suppose that farming should pay at once. It is the exception for any new undertaking to pay at once whether it be a public work or a private farm. It was not supposed that the Manawatu Railway would be immediately remunerative, whatever Mr Passmore may say to the contrary. The principle that sanctions the outlay of enormous sums of money m public works without any immediate adequate return is the principle that must actuate m the establishment of private industries — whether agricultural or manufacturing. The fruits of both are prospective. Happily our organisation allows us either to draw largely of the future for the sake of the present or to sacrifice the present for the future. The pioneer of progress has to do the latter, and m this new country we all have pioneer work to do and pioneer difficulties to encounter. The time has come when we must draw support from the in-

trinsic wealth of the country to a degree greater than heretofore, and while we are passing through the initial difficulties of the process we are assui'edly laying a foundation for a solid and enduring prosperity. Doubtless an increased immigration to the colony at this time would hasten our progress ; but as we have before remarked, it would be at the cost of much present discontent and hardship. A person may have plenty of house-room for all the furniture he can purchase, but until an arrangement of the articles is made and each consigned to its proper place, he suffers all the inconvenience of being overcrowded. So m this country there is ample room and suppoi't for increased population, yet, if that increase were to exceed our present facilities of bestowal, a similar result would transpire. These remarks are relevant to the condition of Palmerston, inasmuch as what has been said of the whole countrty is true of this particular part. Many persons m business and out of it are discouraged by the aspect of affairs. Some have been obliged to dispose of their homes and seek their fortunes elsewhere. These evils are great and real while they last, but assuredly they are only evils of to-day. The circumstances that have brought them about stamp them as passing evils, and the capabilities of this place for industrial pursuits point to a good future of no distant date. While many therefore are looking for a general and speedy depreciation m the value of land, the wise man will bide thfi storm and at all risks retain his possessions.