MORE POPULATION NECESSARY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2474, 19 May 1888, Page 2

MORE POPULATION NECESSARY.

TO THE KDITOR. Sin, —It is very necessary that Boards of Agriculture be funned. Commerce is grinding agriculture to dust. Commerce versus agriculture is (Jain versus Abel, and so it has been from the days cil Adam. Agriculture must organise or mk. It is s.iid wo must trust in an oxport trade. Heroic idea! As well might the heroes of Balaklava expect their charge of the IiOO to be successful as to expect young New Zealand, with it (500,000 souls, haudicapped with £1)0,000,000 of public and private deM, to compets in export with tho masses of men and money of Aitieriea and the continent of Europe. To population and to population al mo must wo look to lift our state coach out «f tho rut of past policies. And to a population on the lands of the colony, not in front or back streets of cities, who in New Zealand as elsewhere, represent the state coach itself, in which rest the Government bunches and vested interests. Therefore Boards of Agriculture are absolutely necessary to tho safety of our national honour and integrity. Unless we can get more shoulders to the wheel we shall not move out of our dilemma, and to stand still is to sink deeper and deeper into the mire of debt and despair. To talk about raising revenue from a tax on unimproved lands is insanity. Even improved lands are only being held because they cannot be sold at a price to cover improvements made. (Jnimproved land in New Zealand is only worth having as a gift, and where ratepayers have improved their lands by roads, &■:., and occupied them in the face of an enemy for a. number of years, they ought to be encouraged and not discouraged. Therefore, laud tax or land nationalisation will never succeed in Young New Zealand's policy. Boards of Agriculture must have a vv.ico in such outside legislation. Beneath the tables of the money-lender we must look for the iron heel and the cloven foot which treads so heavily and unequally upon our toes in the country, Boards of Agriculture will give confidence ; and confidence means cheap money, for neither is it land monopoly, nor is it over-production that is the evil or cause of the depression. It is universal want, of confidence. Land monopoly is a disease; but land naturalisation would be a cure more to be dreaded than the disease itself; and over-production is impossible It is dishonesty in our Commissariat Department, and greedy or insolvent producers and purveyors, who prey one upon the other, as in other lines oripples supply and demand. But a Board of Agriculture would, when properly organised, be a friend to tho honest producer and purchaser alike, any way an arbitrator.

Free trade and Protection are the (log and Magog of our day, champions and mainstay of foul trade and bankruptcy, and the mortal enemy of Reciprocity and Cooperation which are the only true friends of fair trade and honest dealing, and will bo a motive for establishing Boards of Agriculture in the colony of New Zealand. Unless the country districts co-operate upon some defined base, such as is suggested by the Board of Agriculture, they will fall lower and lower in tho opinions of those who hold the financial and social scales in their hand, if for no other reason than that energy, patriotism and independency will consider tho country as not worth living in, and clear out at any sacrifice. Another good settler and energetic man is leaving Waikato in Mr Reynolds, the district cannot afford to lose such men. Something should be done to bring the district together, and sink local jealousies for the time being at W-t.—Yours truly, Wiu.r.ut A. Gkaha.v. Tho Hamilton, May Kith, ISSB.