The Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1874. "MEASURES, NOT MEN."

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 400, 17 October 1874, Page 2

The Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1874. "MEASURES, NOT MEN."

In our last Saturday's issue, w'd objected to Governments and Municipalities assuming the , functions which.' properly belong to private enterprise: such as our own Town Hall suheme with the appendages of a hall, for amusements, and shops, and the great Polynesian scheme of Mr. Yogel. There is one way in which Government may assist private enterprise, and act - within legitimate bounds. We refer to the offering of bonuses to start any industry in the country. Every country ought, H far as possible, to provide for

its own contingent wants within its own bounds. Attention should be paid to have the raw material made into -useful fabrics, and the wastes arising from manufacture and tear and wear, manipulated into articles of profit. The more that this is done, the land is made to bear more people, and the complements of the body politic find their proper places. Now, in a yotmg country where labor is more abundant in its needed proportions than capital, there are comparatively few who can risk, without some hope of remuneration, to import plant and skilled labor to start an industry. In such circumstances, the active and enterprising receive a stimulus from such a prize, as a bonus, to make the attempt ; and there can be little doubt that the country has reaped material advantage from the offer of bonuses. We are indebted to this means for the opening up of the goldfields, and the great increase thence arising to our material wealth, and also to our population. Another important addition to our population and material wealth from the same cause, is the establishment of the Mosgiel Factory. All the hands employed there, call for the presence among us of additional artizans and mechanics, who also become consumers of the produce of our agriculturalists. The creation of a mercautile marine will also be of advantage to the country ; and we are glad to see that parties have been found to claim the bonus offered to encourage the whale and seal fishery in our southern latitudes. We are glad to find that, though the time has elapsed for the bonuses for the production of pig iron and steel from the Titaniferous sand, the Colonial Government is still disposed to extend the boon to any parties who will undertake the task of founding such industries in the country. Bonuses aro still, we believe, held out for the production of paper in the Colony, and also for glass and bottle works. We should like to see such industries begun. They are needed as a proper complement to agriculture. Although not hi favor of protection, we are decidedlyjin favor of bonuses. When protection is resorted to, there is no telling what it costs the country, and yet the country as a whole is impoverished. When, however, a bonus is offered, it is simply with a view to initiate an industry. The'country incurs no further responsibility ; and, if successful, it affords means' for absorbqjgso many more into the community, who, as tax-payers, will speedily recoup tho State for its first outlay. Our contemporary the " Otago Guardian," in a recent article on the deepening of the Dunedin harbour, has thus undertaken to lecture the up-country papers on their obtuseness in criticising the scheme :—": — " Whilst upon this subject, we have a few words to say to some of our up-country friends, who, with the best intentions, are doing a certain amount of mischief by decrying the scheme for deepening and improving the navigation of the harbour. They may be assured that whatsoever benefits. the trade and commerce of the Port tend.*) to the advantage of every district which derives ita supplies therefrom. It is the old story of the belly and the other members of the body, over again . — one of those strange hallucinations in fact which continually beset the dwellers in the remote parts of every country under the sun. But it surely requires no argument to show that the most remote up-country district derives a direct advantage from whatsoever advantages Dunedin — from every niil<s of main road or railway, wheresoever located, and equally from everything which tends to facilitate and cheapen tho transit of goods which, although necessarily first imported into the town, are thereafter diffused throughout the country"' We can assure our friend the " Guardian," that we have very great regard for the " belly ; " and are quite disposed to satisfy its cravings in all that is reasonable, but we scarcely like to see turtle sonp and champagne on the table, and the body, in the centre of which the belly is ensconced, persisting in having another robe of finest texture before it ! has more than donned a very expensive one — viz., the Port Chalmors railway and jetty, while the arms and legs are scantily clothed, and the feet altogether bare. Our objection further has not been to the deepening of the Harbor : provided the Dunedin people, having so recently <lrawn on the Province for the railway, had consented to be rated for the project in the event of revenue being insufficient to payinterest. If, therefore, we are referred to in the above paragraph along with others, we fail to see that the fable of the belly and the members of the body at all applies to our line of argument. We would remind our contemporary . that gluttony is as bad for the extremities as hunger, and that the belly at Dunedin has always taken very good care to have rich and full meals ; while it has not been very particular about the feet being properly shod, or the logs comfortably cohered. |