NEGLECTED SOURCES OF WEALTH.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 277, 15 June 1860, Page 3

NEGLECTED SOURCES OF WEALTH.

(From the South Auipalian Registrar.) We have often called attention to the fact that, as a community, we pay away large sums annually for goods which we ought to produce ourselves. Goods, that is, of which Nature supplies us with the raw material, if not spontaneously, at least with so little demand upon our own industry as to place us at a great advantage in comparison with all foreign producers. So often, indeed,' has this subject been made the topic of remark in this colony that it may almost be believed that there must be some important fact overlooked—some important element in th§ argument overlooked, which, if duly considered, would change the aspect of the whole case.

Self-interest, it may be said, is sufficiently active to prompt men to accomplish whatever it is pecuniarily profitable for them to do; and the soundest principles of political economy forbid that men should attempt to do anything which can be more cheaply done by others, differently situated. Granting all this, it by no means that/ollows all persons will instinctively adopt the best course that is open to them under their particular circumstances. It happens, not infrequently, that men are not acquainted with the facts which must be known in order to their adoption of the best possible course of action. To their limited range of individual vision, things appear small which are really great, or great when they are comparatively small. The influence of habit, to say nothing of prejudice, is also very great, and it often happens that a person perseveres to his own hurt in a course which has been profitable under other conditions. More frequently still he fails to see the new chances of success which new circumstances open out before him. "We might adduce numerous illustrations in exemplification of each of the cases we 'have suggested, but it is needless to do so, as the experience of every man will supply them.

All that we have to sustain at| present is the general (statement that individual experience will not always afford a true criterion of the extent of the general demand, or the profitableness of a particular avocation. What farmer, for example, who grows his acre or two of potatoes merely as an adjunct to his agricultural operations would suppose that the sum of- £12,591 was expended last year in the purchase of potatoes from foreign countries ? or what settler who keeps a few cows to supply his home wants, and perhaps to raise a few shillings to swell the "old woman's" pocket money, would dream that his fellow colonists sent little less than £8000 away from the -colony last year for the purchase of butter and cheese alone ? Or; to take a still stronger case, will the owner of a fruitgarden, who has allowed bushels of fruit to rot on the ground, believe fthat we laid out as a community scarcely less than £30,000 daring 1859 for dried and bottled

fruits? And all the time.he was probably troubled beyond measure by the feeling that he ought tofind some employment for those mischievous young urchini of his, whose energies, so far from being exhausted by their scholastic occupations only seemed to gain greater strength from their temporary divergence towards the acquisition of literary knowledge. -

Although, then, we have often before called the attention of our producing population to thesources of wealth which lie at their very doors neglected and perhaps forgotten, we will once more remind them of their existences and urge them to turn them to account, -

As the first and perhaps on the whole the most effectual mode of arousing the interest of South Australinn readers in this matter, vye will extract a few items from the official returns of imports into South Australian ports during the year 1859. We will take, in the first instance, only those articles of which the raw materials are produced here almost spontaneously, and the manufacture of which is simple and generally understood. The following articles will, we think, be acknowledged to belong to this category :— Bacon and hams . . . £4,491 0 Beef and pork , . . 1,022 0 Bread and biscuit . . . 193 5 Butter 2,701 0 Cheese . . . . 5,393 10 [ Corn and meal . . . 4,866 10 Fish—dry and pickled . . 4,181 0 Fruit—Dried, of all sorts . . 29,426 10 Hops 7,194 0 Lead 4,277 0 Leather . . . . 1,153 10 Malt 11,840 0 Oil—Whale, olive, &c. . . 9,515 10 Potatoes .... 12,59110 Salt . . . . . 2,968 0 Blates for roofing, <fee. ; ■ . 3,245 0 Wine . . . . . . 22,880 15 Wood—posts, rails, palings, &c. . 9,338 0 Total . . . £137,278 0 If to this total we were to add brandy, which but for the prohibitory regulations enforced by the Legislature it would t>e perfectly legitimate to include in our table, we should have a sum of upwards of £170,000 sent away last year for articles which Nature provides for us almost in a merchantable shape. Leaving out spirits, however, we ask our country settlers—for it is they who are most nearly concerned— to inquire whether they could not contrive to supply the home market with some of the articles indicated at a remunerative price; and whether the sum of £137,278 added to their gross incomes would not materially improve the position of some of them. We will now subjoin a fe.w more articles in which a large amount of manufacturing skill and trained industry would require to co-operate with the exertions of the grower to produce the marketable result, but which, nevertheless, are not at all beyond the reach of colonial enterprise :— Beer, porter, ale, &c. . , . 0 Candles .... 16,^28 10 Iron, raw and manufactured . . 53,081 10 Saddlery and harness . . 12,627 0 Soap .. . ... 26,194 0 Total . . . £160,570 0 In this last table, few as are its items, there is a still larger field laid open for colonial enterprise. It is a field which will some day be occupied; and that it is now left untilled indicates only the high rate of remuneration which both capital and labor require to bring them into operation here., When money shall become more plentiful and seek employment at lower rates of profit, and when labor shall become more abundant, and be satisfied with a lower scale of wages, our Customs returns with cease to include most of the articles we have enumerated —unless, indeed, they appear, on the other side of the account as article of export. Till then, however, let us not complain that we have no openings for the employment of our people or our cash.