WHAT CAUSES PROSPERITY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9154, 30 July 1908, Page 4

WHAT CAUSES PROSPERITY.

A great deal has been written and said lately in regard to the causes that have contributed to the present financial condition . of the country, which somewhat approaches a stale of slight depression, and more particularly has much been uttered in reference to the reasons why the present undoubted scarcity of money should exist. The chief factor, however, that has brought prosperity to this country is increased production. Everyone knows that the factors that produce wealth are land, capital and labour. Land, of course, must be utilised to produce, and it ia utilised by means of capital and labour. Misspent capital, like misspent labour, is not urofitable; neither produce wealth, but, on the contrary, tf.nd to bring, atiout, when misapplied, a diminution, at any rate, if not of wealth, at least of prosperity, and, reduce the production cf the country. New Zealand will never reach thft zenith of its prosperity; it npver will, indeed, have any great strength to resist depression until the volume of production is enormously increased. New Zealand exports largely, she produces much, and could produc) infinitely more of various commodities which other countries need, while we are not really dependent to any extent upon the products of other countries for our existence. New Zealand, naturally blessed to a marvellous degree, makes but poor progress in establishing financial strength. The close settlement of the' country, when production - woulJ increase apace, and when the population would move ahead as the result of growing industries, would create an internal strength that would not leave the people so hopelessly in the hands of merciless foreign money - lenders.