THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 1910. LAND DEVELOPMENT AND INDUSTRIES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10066, 13 August 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 1910. LAND DEVELOPMENT AND INDUSTRIES.

The policy adopted by successive Protectionist Governments in New Zealand has teen to stimulate industries without regard to the infernal development of the country. By some strange process of political reasoning it has been concluded that ail that is required to ensure the happiness and contentment of the I people, and all that is necessary to | absorb the labour which grows with us, and arrives from other countries, is to erect factories, furnish them with machinery, fortify them with legislation, and trust to Providence to do the rest. For some reason or another it does not seem to have dawned upon our politicians that there is a condition precedent to the permanent security of any local industry. That condition obviously is a market for the goods manufactured. It is idle to talk in New Zealand of fostering our; national industries when there is no profitable market for the outpit. Tbe duty of politicisi r , as of iidividuals, should be to Etrive, by ', ev?ry legitimate, mean?,, to. incr.ea.~e;

otr population. This - can only be done by pursuing a progressive policy of land settlement, by inspiring hope and confidence in the people, and by so modelling our' laws that life in the Dominion will be more than a mere drudgery. One need hardly point to the United Stated as a country of marvellous industrial enterprise following successful settlement. What is now happening in Canada? First the Government of tha*, great Dominion decides upon encouraging immigration by popularising its land laws. Then it nets to work to supply its own needs. And what do we find? New factories are being erected and old factories enlarged. Industries have been brought from the United States, from Great Britain, and from other countries, until it haa been found difficult to provide a sufficiency of skilled labour. Js this not an object lesson to New Zealand? Does it not point to the conclusion that we have been putting the industrial cart before the settlement hoirae? With our bountiful resources, our magnificent climate, our fertile soil, we should be maintaining at least five millions of people, instead of the paltry million which now haa to lament the decadence of prematurely-established industries. When it is remembered that the active settlement of Canada commenced only a few years back, and when the manifeat disadvantages of civilisation in that country are considered, the increase of population in that during recent years can be regarded only as marvellous. Let ua pause in New Zealand and ask ourselves whether we are doing all that we might to remedy the wrongs which well meaning bat m»3gaided politicians havein ffi'ced upon as. Are we not too prone to take things as they are, without considering tin future? Are we not, in fact, living in what might be termed a Fool's Paradise?