Wanganui Chronicle. and TURAKINA X RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. SATURDAY, 1ST MAY, 1869.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XIII, Issue 1021, 1 May 1869, Page 2

Wanganui Chronicle. and TURAKINA X RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. SATURDAY, IST MAY, 1869.

Statistics, though proverbially dry reading, are important as forming the groundwork of more entertaining—perhaps even gratifying—information. Agricultural statistics, besides, are the least uninteresting of figures, and on this ground, we intend to consider the relative progress that has attended these districts in their strictly agricultural aspects, leaving the consideration of stock and population to another day. The yearly enumeration which is now carried on under the “ Census Acts Amendment Act, 1567,” forms the basis of our calculations. The return gives the approximate state of the country, as it existed on the Ist February of the present year. On that date in the Rangitikei district (lying between the Wangaehu and Rangitikei rivers) there were 8,390 acres of land broken up but not under crop ; 626 acres under wheat, estimated to yield 32,739 bushels of grain; 1,548 acres oats, say 36,856 bushels of gross produce ; 197 acres barley, producing 4,023 bushels; 869 acres in hay, yielding 1,280 tons of fodder ; 240 acres potatoes, estimated to yield 1,611 tons ; aud 61 acres under other crops ; while there were 43,347 acres (including land in hay already mentioned) laid down in permanent grasses. In the Wanganui district (between the Wangaehu and Patea rivers) there were on the same date, 721 acres of cultivated land not under crop ; 139 acres in wheat, yielding 3,095 bushels ; a like number of acres (139) under oats, estimated to yield 3,322 bushels ; 24 acres in barley, equivalent to 490 bushels ; 204 acres in hay, equal at 307 tons ; 153 acres in potatoes producing 1,611 tons ; and 6 acres under other crops; besides 16,842 acres (including the acreage then under hay) sown down with permanent grasses. The following tabular statement will show the relative amounts and the gross totals : BROKEN CROP- GRASS- Total

tip ped ed improved Rangitikei, 8,390 3,541 42,478 54,409 Wanganui, ' 721 752 16,638 18,111 Totals: 9,111 4,293 59,116 72,520 Going a little further into the matter, let us inquire what is the commercial value of these products % Taking the present Canterbury quotations as a criterion (and that is erring, if anything, on the safe side) we find that the 32,739 bushels of wheat grown this year in the Rangitikei district are worth

(at 3s 9d) £2,388 11s 3d; 36,856 bushels of oats (at 2s 3d) £6,646 6s ; 4,023 bushels of barley (at os) £1,007 5s ; 1,280 tons of bay, (at £6) £7,680 ; 1,611 tons of potatoes (at £3) £4,833 ; making a total of £22,555 2s 3d, for cereal crops alone in the Rangitikei district for the present year. A similar computation for the Wanganui district would represent a total of £3,180 (13s 9d) or a gross total of £25,715 16s Od.

We suppose that the idea of any benefit, either directly or otherwise, being derived from the presence of Maoris in our Parliament, having been reduced to something like absurdity, will not be much longer given effect to by law. But how to retrace one’s steps is the difficulty. The experiment has been tried and failed more completely than its greatest opponents ever predicted of it. The country has received no benefit but much harm from the experiment. Votes that can be bought or sold should be dispensed with altogether. Yet the members returned to represent the aboriginal races of New Zealand have been chiefly distinguished by a desire to turn a position, of the responsibilities of which they have no true conception, to their own peculiar advantage ; their views of personal aggrandisement being without the slightest veil to shade their attempt at extorting a shilling or borrowing an ounce of tobacco. The one argument, vanced by those who advocated Maori representation, and the one on which most men were inclined by way of experiment to concede the point—that the aborigines admitted to the councils of the nation might become amenable to our laws and so conform to a policy of harmonious unity —has had a fearful contradiction. The period during which the Maoris have been represented in parliament has been the time of all others in which the bloodiest and most trying of all the crises of the colony has*occurred. It is to be hoped that this standing menace on the honour of our representative institutions will pass away with an expiring parliament. Speaking of Maori representation, it may be interesting—at least, amusing—to refer to the platitudes uttered on this subject while it was yet infuturo. On the 6th of August, 1862, Mr Fitz Gerald introduced a series of resolutions, the purport of which was the admission of Maoris into Parliament, and concluded a grandiloquent speech in support of them in the following words :

“ I appeal to-night to the House to inaugurate a policy of courageous and munificent justice. I have a right to appeal to you as citizens of that nation which, deaf to the predictions of the sordid and the timid, dared to give liberty to her slaves. I appeal to you to-night in your sphere to perform an act of kindred greatness. I appeal to you not only on behalf of that ancient race whose destinies are hanging in the balance, hut on behalf of your sons and your sons’ sons —for I venture to predict that in virtue of that mysterious law of our being by which great deeds once done become incorporated into the life and soul of a people, enriching the source from whence flows, through all the ages, the inspiration of noble thoughts, and the incitement to generous actions, I venture to predict, that among the traditions of that great nation which will one day rule those islands, and the foundations of which we are now laying, the most cherished and the most honoured will he the wise, hold, and generous policy which gave the Magna Charta of their liberties to the Maori race. ”

After the drama comes the farce—a farce, in this case, which is “ not worth the candle.”