NOVEL INDUSTRIES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 171, 21 July 1871, Page 4

NOVEL INDUSTRIES.

■ o ' ' In his speech to his Melbourne constituents, the Hon. Gavan Duffy, the Chtef Secretary of Victoria is reported to have made the following remarks which are quite as applicable to New Zealand as they are to Australia : — " Under my own department there are over 2,000 children, wards of the state, out of whom I could hope to get, if there were leisure, more useful results for the community than out of many acts of Parliament. In other countries, these children are taught rare and useful employments, and their labor is made in a double degree reproductive. All over Europe there is a remarkable movement in progress ior teaching the principles, and even the actual practice, of new industries, by which already comparatively poor populations have been made prosperous. The generous men engaged in this task have eagerly seized on not merely the children io the care of the state, but even on its criminals, and by training them in new industries, have restored them to prosperity and self-respect. I ana extremely anxious to, see these children taught tie industries of Southern Europe, which would bring health and comfort .and fortune in their train. More than eight years ago I induced Parliament to agree to a resolution to send home for skilled laborers to teach us to dry fruit, to manufacture olive oil, to bring tobacco culture to perfection, and to undertake some of the kindred industries of France, Germany, and Spain. I even got the power incorporated in an act of Parliament. But the proposal did not find favor with the Governments who have siuce administered the act, an,d nothing practical was done. A sum larger than the whole revenue of Victoria |oes annually out oi the country for products for which our soil and climate are singularly fit, if we had only the skilled labor. The Acclimatisation Societyjs^e^periraent of producing silk illustrates t&e danger of operating through amateurs, learned only in the bookish theory ; and with the sanction of Parliament I iritend to ask the Agent-G-eneral to find jjs/i> dozen or two skilled artisans who will help to do for us what a similar experiment has triumphantly established io some of the cantons of Switzerland. In the United States, during the most exhausting period of the war, the Minister of Agriculture continued to issue" papers on what I may nanje. the smaller industries, and there arejip. almost every middle-class household iel $Vict*6ria articles of the growth or manufacture of America, which sprang put of this system. In. Austria fruit and garden cultivation i$ taught in schools ; in Italy, the farms used for ; "V penal, purposes haye become colleges of instruction ; of v tfite highest value ; arid in Belgium, y in similar schools, practicathbrticulture, floriculture, and. the multiplication of W&*l piaWand fruit, "are regularly taught. I mentioned lone oj the pratftical«outcomes oi last time.) li addressed -my constituents; ►Switzerland, where*th€ 'soilia inferior, where f there are.no seaports, ari<i which jajwtthout coal ias^TiyVsysieiii of inctubtrialiiraini^ beaten England,.,^!

i of one of her special trades. The ribbon trade of Switzerland, Professor Playfair ; tells us, is worth over a million and a half 1 annually, and is rapidly increasing ; while i the Macclesfield and Cover.try trade has i sunk to about £60,000 a year. I would ; like to have men brought from Spain to • teach us the art of drying raisins, figs, and i almonds • from Lucca, to instruct us in i the art of getting good oil from the olive ; • and as Switzerland has learned to manuf facture cigars and sell them in the Southern I States of America, where the raw material t is in greatest perfection, by means of its 3 skilled industry. I believe we will never ; effectually establish the tobacco trade t without importing experienced workmen from the districts where ifc is most successi fully" cultivated. We are placing our I population on the land, and it is a wise i and necessary public policy to multiply the industries by ■which the land may ) yield an adequate income; and to this I 1 will give every hour I can spare from r political duties.