TRADE DEPRESSION.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1084, 10 September 1883, Page 2

TRADE DEPRESSION.

TO THE EDITOR, Sir,' —This is a subject which is well worth discussing in the public papers. That it exists there is no doubt; that it is general from one end of the colony to the other will be admitted, and to endeavour to ascertain (by getting the views of all classes of the community on the question) the true cause of the depression should be the object of the correspondence. In your leader of the 7th instant, you seem to put great stress on Mr Wilson’s remarks that the extinguishing of the middle men by the Joint Stock companies, who have the command of capital at one half the rate of interest the middle men would their bankers for it, is one great cause. This view as to the cause of general and wide spread depression, in my opinion, is unsound, and will not bear investigation, for its effect would simply be felt by the middle men, and they, if they ceased to carry on business on their own account, would be absorbed by the larger firms as managers and in other capacities. The saving by working the business of the colony by cheap capital should rather improve the condition of the community by lessening the charges on produce exported and goods imported so that the cause is deeper than this, and will require more than a surface investigation; . -

The next cause touched upon by Mr Wilson is land speculation, and here I think he has hit upon one of the principal causes of trade depression, and if upon a public ventilation df the subject through the papers, this view should appear to be almost generally accepted, then we should consider why we have land: speculation with all its attendant evils—and the remedy—or prevention of the disease, should be the object of our quest. The opening of new lands should prove a stimulant to trade and dustry, and should cause comnierciayT and industrial activity—not fiepressjfo/, —and in our search for the depression, we may dismiss Joint Stock Companies, middlemen, over importation, and private extravagance as of secondary importance, and I think may confine our enquiries to Land, Labour, and Taxation. The land having been sold, and the buyers being unrestricted in their dealings with it, it has in. many cases passed out of the occupation of the first buyers or settlers. This we may see in our own districts, where, for instance, the owners of considerable extents of very valuable land having died, the land is now the freehold of persons residing in England who have leased to gentlemen residing in New Zealand, who after occupying the land for grazing purposes for a short time are enabled to sublet at a profit and retire to town life and travel. And the present tenants in turn rent out portions for cropping purposes to the struggling farmer. Leasing and sub-letting of land is coming more into vogue, and we are gradually coming to the high state of civilisation of the Old Country with its landlords and tenants and landless labourers.

As at present a great portion of the population of New Zealand are land owners and Hying in New Zealand, a great many speculative owners only, and those who are occupying land in many instances are holding far more than they have labour within themselves, or capital to employ labour to properly utilise. What is required to remove their depression and increase the value' of their land and its productions is a large influx of labourers. At the meeting of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce you mention among other causes of depression “and last, insufficiency of population to meet taxation.”. Here then it appears that at Dunedin it is the opinion that land speculation is the cause, and at Christchurch that insufficiency of tax paying population is the cause; Then land being limited, and population unlimited, if the land owners of New Zealand require to improve their position, it is by immigration of working people, who will pay the taxation of the country, and enable the owners to retire from their labour and live as landlords on their rent. ’ -

It should be a grand country for the landowners or landlords were there only a sufficiency of landless laborers who would pay the present indirect taxation, which means from 20 per cent to 350 per cent, on most articles of every day use ; and why we landowners do not press upon the Government the importance of immediate and extensive immigration, shows that we are not fully

alive to the advantagcs-we hold. Trusting to hear the views of others on the question of depression,—l am, &c., Landowner. Patea, Sept. 8.