CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 285, 30 November 1881, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION. To THE EoiTOlt OF THE " EVENING MAIL." Sir,— A recent letter in the Mail from a "Waimea Elector" revealed the fact that there are Btill men who think that relief from the present agricultural depression is to be sought in Governmental action. It jg astonishing what faith the colonists Beem to have in the half score of gentlemen who manipulate the affairs of the Stato. They are a kind of King Bountiful from whom all kind* of blessings may be expected to flow. Alas ! experience proves that their real power over the current of events is very 6mall indeed. The Turkish benedieiion is the cne oftf nest realised — " Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed." No. As I have before intimated, self-help is the one reliable hope. Whether Mr Joseph Sbephard or Mr J. C. Richmond goes to Wellington as representative of the Waimea farmers will make little difference to their yearly balance sheets. Their failure or success will remain equally in their own hand 3. I shall be glad to afford these, and others who may be interested in the agricultural interest— and who are not ? —a little information gleaned from an able article in the "Nineteenth Century" for February, 18S0, by Mr Arthur Arnold, entitled " Free Land and Peasant Proprietorship." It is hardly necessary for me to say that the agricultural depression felt here in New Zealand is felt with equal severity in England. Mr Arnold's argument is that the depression is very much a consequecce of bad laws and defective agriculture. He looks to a breaking ap of the large estates, and the employment of more capital on the land for an increased production, and a consequent revival of the farming intarests. The increased cost of labour has led English farmers to cot down the working staff to the lowest possible point, and the unwise parsimony has resulted in % greatly diminished yield. Tea millions sterling, one of his Euthoritiea Bated, would not suffice to bring back the higler cultivation of former years;. He qupos a 'etttr from the Times in which the v^rit r declares that "[it is well known among J^tarmera and agricultural

valuers that there are hundreds of thousands of acres of land in this country, which, even if prices and seasons were favourable, are not worth so much for occupation by fifty per cent, rb they were a few yetirg ei;o, because labour hss been etinted," Mr Arnold therefore urges the farmers to concentrate their capital more, and be content with smaller holdings. He quotes an eminent agricultural authority, Mr Caird, to show what may be done by the employment of manures to increase the yield. On one farm where special manure was used there was 2342 pounds of corn grain to the acre, and on another of precisely the same character where no manure was used the quantity was only 730 pounds. In illustration of what may be doBO by the judicious employment of capital Mr Arnold mentions the case of a 200 acre farm which as part of a large estate was in auch a poor condition that it only carmd about 30 sheep and bardly yielded a load of hay. In six year?, by the skilful application o"f capital, a gentleman who had bought h raised its producing power to 50 loads of hay, and its carrying power to six hundred sheep. As a coasequence of the land not being turned to the best advantage Mr Arnold tells us that EDgland has to buy tea million pounds worth of dairy produce every year, and over a huudred million pounds worth of animal food and corn. AH this money, be contends, should go into the English farmers pocket. Now, Sir, I cannot help feeling that much of Mr Arnold's reasoning applies to our New Zealand farming. Here the tendency is to too large holdings, and consequent labor starving. How rarely does one see a farm that is really done 'full: justice to. Nature isprodigal in her giffa but men fail to make the beat of her bounty. Hence the prevailing depression. The other day a steamsr brought a cargn of wheat to Nelson, I could not help asking myself the ciuestion, 'What^are the Nelson farmers thinking about V Surely we ought to grow enough wheat for our own wants. Why are the thousands of acres of sunny slopes all around here left to the furze and manuka ? Cattle and sheep should be luxuriating on English grasses thereon, while the valleys "are covered over with com." The increased population rendered thereby necessary, as tillers of the soil, would give a stimulus to trade and commerce. I pay little attcotion to the " poor laud " cry. Three years ago I met Sir W. Fox in a Wellington hotel, and he told me that there was no good land in the Nelson province, but it was not three weeks ago that I saw a Waimea field of wheat giving as fine a promise as I ever saw a growing crop giving, and of the barley I need not £ay a word. What the land needs is more labour bestowed upon it, and men who either cannot or will not find that labour should make way for those who can. It is simply disgraceful that with millions of acres of land lying idle here men should have to go in shoals to New South Wales to get a job of work. New Zealand is in my judgment the finest agricultural country in the world, and nothing is needed to develop her hidden wealth but the requisite skill and enterprise. I never tire in my admiration of an industrious Lincolnshire man who resides near where lam writing. He has made of three or four acres of swamp a prolific garden, Within a stone's throw of his land is a wilderness of manuka owued by people who have not even the enterprise to sow it down in decent grass. In Cyprus there is a law that any owner of land" who neglects for three years to put ifc to its proper use, namely, the production of food, shall forfeit it to the state. Some such law as this will have to be enforced in England before long, and the sooner the same pressure is brought to bear on New Zealand landowners the better will it be for the whole community.— l am, &c. Arthur Clatben. Nelson, Nov. 29.

To the Editor op the "Evening Mail.' Sir, — Mr Sbephard, having with oae exception cast all the bit; fish out of his net nnd left only the sprats, is prepared from the latter to form what he calls a combination Ministry with Mr Ornnona, and, I presume, himself at the head of it. A very pretty kettle of fish indeed.— Yours, &c. One more Waimea Elector. Novemher 28.

To the Editor of the " Evening Mail." Sir, — Having heard it rumored within tbe last few days that two or three pereous were the means of bringing Mr Richmond forward an a candidate merely from personal dislike to Mr Shephard, and also to gain their own selfish ends, I for one wish emphatically to deny the truth of such an assertion, to prove which I may state that I have never seen Mr Shephard, nor do I know him, but my object like that of- a good many others is to be fairly represented in the House, and from what I have wad of Mr Shephard's political career I should think him anything but worthy of our support. It therefore behoves us to seek some one who will c&rrj out our wishes and not be blown about by every breeze. — I am, &c, William Coleman. Spring Grove, November 28, 1881.