South Canterbury Times. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2645, 12 September 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1881.

SECOND EDITION

Thk great variety ami extent of the resources of this colony is a common boast ; but if wc enquire into the matter with any degree of scepticism we may possibly find that our satisfaction with the possibilities of our position is not too well founded. There are, wo are told, this, that, and the other raw material in the country (often, too, in unlimited quantities), which only need to be utilised to produce a gratifying increase in the sum total of the colonial wealth. But they are not utilised, and very many of them cannot be utilised for many a long day. Such of them, therefore, arc no resources of ours ; they may become the resources of posterity, but they have no present, whatever their prospective, value. We flatter ourselves too much, feeding our fancies with vain hopes. There is too much of the tone of “ Wc could if we would ” in our discussions on colonial industries ; and it would be profitable, in the midst of our boasting about the numerous fields of enterprise open to us, to pause now and then to note how little has yet been done, and how little wc are doing, to utilise those vast resources of which we talk so much. What arc resources, in the sense in which the word is used in this connection ? What but the natural agents, the raw materials, of which wo can make use for the satisfaction of our needs or the needs of other people? It is, therefore, a necessary condition of their utilisation that there be needs to be satisfied ; and the extent of those needs mast have quite as important an influence on the success of indutrics as the extent of the resources from which they are supplied. In Canterbury, for example, agriculture has now the first place in the list of established industries ; and its wide extension is seen at once to be duo to the fact that the British operative is largely dependent upon assistance from without in procuring a sufficient supply of bread. The same consumer is also suffering from a deficiency of animal food, which, this colony could also assist in supplying if modern processes of meat preservation prove as successful as is anticipated. In this case, as in the other, there exist both the need to be supplied and the means for supplying it, —the two chief requisites for the development of an industry. In considering the various proposals now being made in several directions for the establishment of new industries, it is very necessary to estimate, ajs nearly as may be, the extent of the demand existing or likely to arise for the products of their operations ; otherwise, in the haste to do something to improve the condition of the colony, grave mistakes may be made. We, for instance, produce several classes of raw materials, the manufactures of which form part of our daily wants, but of which the total consumption of our as yet scanty population is not great ; of such kind also that we could not reasonably hope locompete with the manufacturers of other countries in outside markets. If the colony undertakes to manufacture materials of these classes, to satisfy her own requirements, care must be taken not to overdo the thing. But this caution may be consideredpremature, and it probably is so; nevertheless it may not unprofitably be kept in mind. As yet the several industries of the kind just referred to, already established in the colony, will bear a considerable degree of expansion beyond their present limits without injury. One such is the manufacture of wool, and another is the manufacture of paper, branches of which trades it is proposed to found in South Canterbury. While so many thousands of pound's are annually sent Home for woollen goods that we could produce ourselves, it is clear that here is a need not yet supplied ; and having the u resource” for suppling that need, any quantity of the raw material, we have the two chief conditions of success. A certain proportion, possibly a large one, of the woollen goods now imported' may be of classes not yet produced in the colonial factories ; but every extension of the industry, will help to make that proportion loss, as competition in the market-place will generate and stimulate emulation in the factory. In this case it would appear that an increase in the total demand will almost certainly accompany an increase in the production. *J’liero is an cxcillcnt opening fora paper mill, one or more, in the colony. The consumption of printing paper, which it is proposed to make, is very large, ami here again need ami resource justify the establishment of the industry.

We wflfild^rgeltjw|f r ktkdisioo haviiig : •been arrivsd ; :at, that such /or' sucijr-an industry ws]|ld prov'ei : remnnei f ative,\iio time BlfouI.il': lie losfcln setting it'jpn foot, s v^he^couatryffccrliunly v rcqq|res. tliat every available opening for the exercise of the surplus physical and mental energy of the people should be occupied without ..delay* With so, many still out of employment, some crying out lustily and a probably greater number muttering " privation silently, it is nothing less than the duty of those who-can assist in making such openings to exert themselves to the utmost in doing so.