THE Wairarapa Mercury. SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1867. UNACKNOWLEDGED TRUTHS PRACTICALLY ILLUSTRATED.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 15, 13 April 1867, Page 2

THE Wairarapa Mercury. SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1867. UNACKNOWLEDGED TRUTHS PRACTICALLY ILLUSTRATED.

A public journal, good for anything, will at times tell unpalatable truths. It cannot fulfil its proper mission, any more than a man can push his way through a crowd, without treading on somebody's toes. They must take them out of the way or suffer the consequences. It's a pity, but there is no help for it. It is the usual practice, because it is both easy and pleasant, to blame the Government if the country is not prosperous, and to ascribe our own want of success to anything or anybody but to ourselves. A flourishing country is supposed to be ably governed, and vice versa. But mar we not mistake cause for effect. Would it not be as rational to conclude that the men who make a country prosperous or the reverse will be sure to be wisely or ill-governed ? Be this as it may our own want of success will not be remedied if we ascribe it to causes which are not within our own control and direction; and most certainly this will not be the case if we only complain of the cause, whether that be real or not, and make no effort for its removal. The bankruptcies which are now taking place in Auckland, the dullness of trade which has for so long a time prevailed in Wellington, are but the effects of a cause which exists in both places. That cause is the excess which prevails of distributors over producers. The bankruptcies and dullness are but the consequences of the excess which exists of non-pro-ducers over producers—of those engaged in the consumption or distribution of wealth over those engaged in its production. Now the troops have been withdrawn, one-half of the merchants and storekeepers of Auckland are not wanted; and Wellington from the first has always been too big for its business. There 'is sure to be dullness of trade under such circumstances. Let the people of Auckland go to work, they cannot escape it by emigrating to California. If there is no land for them to work on the sooner they emigrate the better. Migration and not emigration is the remedy for tho ills of Wellington. That town will be in a flourishing state when the proportion between its population and that of the country districts has undergone a radical alteration. This can be affected either by the migration of half Wellington to the country, or by doubling the population of the country by an immigration from without. Town Boards, Town Executives, Town Councils, and townspeople may do what thev please, but unless they take steps in the direction here indicated, disappointment and not success will be the consequence. While we find in the town twice the number of importers, commission agents, and retail dealers than are required, we find that the country is suffering equally from a dearth of capital and labor. Money is sunk in thej: purchase of large tracts of waste land, which ought to have been expended in making smaller tracts more productive. We do not grow sufficient oats to supply our own horses, and half the bread we eat comes from either South Australia or South America. We speak advisedly when we say that there are scarcely any laboring men in tho Wairarapa who can be obtained at any rate of wages, and that there are none at all who can be obtained at wages which the farmer could afford to give them. But this is not the only reason why the district is not in a flourishing state. It is said that there are too many public houses; but that is a disease which will eventually find its own remedy; the fact is we do not get up soon enough in the morning. Men who don't go to work before eight o'clock, at seed time and harvest, will have to live from hand-to mouth, and find a difficulty in malring both ends meet. If this is the case with the man who owns the land he cultivates, it is still more the case with the man who cultivates by means of hired labor the land he owns. There requires either an alteration of the eight-hour system, or the introduction of those labor-saving machines which will render the farmer independent of laborers for hire. We have been so intent on enlarging instead of improving our estate* that in an agricultural point of view this Province is the worst managed of any in the colony. Our land regulations appear to have been devised for this purpose, but now the land has got into private hands, probably labor-savingj machines will be bronght more into general use, and that we shall cease to depend for our oats on Otago, and for our breadstuffs on Australia and America.

In the foregoing 1 remarks we have indicated some of the causes which have been in operation from which the depression which now prevails in trade in Wellington in part arises, and to which the backward state of agriculture in this Province in part is owing. The heavy taxation to which the colony is subjected must operate seriously on the labor market, not only by raising the price of living, but in preventing that colonization of the country by means of which only an adequate supply of labor can be procured. Nor are we unmindful that while this heavy taxation exist 8

over the whole colour the effects here reter red to, as arising - from it, must necessarily he much more seriously felt in the Provinces of the North Island than in those of the Middle Island, inasmuch as the gold fields attract, in spite ot heavy taxes, a population there from which the settlers of the North Island are necessarily and as a matter of course, quite excluded. Still we cannot help thinking that if one-half of the capital and labor now employed in tire Provinces of Auckland and Wellington in trade and ■cortuuerce, or wasted in idleness and dissipation, were transferred to agricultural pursuits, and if there was at the same time a little more energy and activity exhibited on the part ot the country settlers in the cultivation of their lands, the North Island would soon become one of the finest and most fiourishiny countries under the sun. "When we commenced this article it was our intention to have brought at once under the reader’s notice a district of country which in many respects resembles portions of this valley; which, however, is inferior to them both as regards soil and climate; but which, in point of wealth, population,jand productiveness, far excels them all put together. The district we refer to is that of Tokomairiro in the Province of Otago. Our readers iiave all heard of the re-

rent tour of His Excellency the Governor through the Middle Island, and of the warm and enthusiastic reception he there everywhere met with. One oi'the places he visited was Tokomairiro, and amongst the addresses presented to him on that occasion there was one from the Farmer’s Club of the district, which Sir George Grey said atforded him more pleasure than any one amongst the very many he had received during the course of a long public life, he have only room for die following paragraph from it— When your Excellency last visited Otago there was" but a single hut on tin's large Plain on which you now stand. Not a single acre of the many thousand now in cultivation had then been invaded by the plough—all was wild and in a state of Nature then; now we can point with pardonable pride to the many comfortable homesteads and well-filled stackyards, to the many miles of substantial fences, to the thousands of acres yielding a plentiful harvest to their owners, and to the luxuriant grass paddocks filled with valuable stock, which unite in making Tokomairiro the most important agricultural district in New Zealand. To enable your Excellency rightly to estimate

our claims to this position, we may state that the quantity of land in cultivation this year is upwards of ’25,000 acres, and that the quantitv of grain which will be sent to market will probably be upwards of 300,000 bushels, notwithstanding the large quantity lost in consequence of the recent violent winds. The rapidly increasing use of labor-saving machines has assisted greatly in enlarging the area under cultivation! and the reaping and threshing machines now in use on the Plain of themselves represent an invested capital of upwards of £SOOO. There are many points of resemblance between Tokomairiro and one of the Wairarapa plains, but he must have a fertile imagination who can have any resemblance between the progress made by the two places. The farmers of Tokomairiro have more than 25,000 acres of land under cultivation. The farmers of Tokomairiro instead of importing from neighboring provinces, will nave 1300,000 bushels to send to market. The farmers of Tokomairiro have reaping and threshing machines representing an invested capital of £5,000. They nave a Farmer’s Club as well as a newspaper. They have a Town Council to manage their local affairs. They are anxiously looking to the time when a railroad wifi connect Tokomairiro with Dunedin. They have not, as at Featherston, allowed their chief town to be virtually turned into a sheep run; or, as at Greytown, allowed their public reserves to be rested in an irresponsible and absentee trustee. Finally while a portion of the setllers of the North Island have been engaged in active warfare, “ they have,” as they inform His Excellency, “ been battling with the uncultivated wilds, transforming the unprofitable wilderness into a rich and fertile country, affording sustenance to a numerous, lianpv, and prosperous population." It is “Lombardstreet to a China orange,” they have not there a public-house to every dozen houses, and a similar bet might be ventured that the fanners who are able to send 300,000 bushels of grain to market do not lie a bed till eight o’clock in the morning.