THE EXODUS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 2999, 3 October 1891, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE EXODUS.

TO TIIK KIIITOH. Sli:, —If you will permit mo I will crivo some reasons f' ,r the n\odus from New /faland, which lias now been of so lons contimuncn. The first and most obvious reason was the cessation ill a great meoMiro of employment on public works. Another cause that, has been acting for a year or two with great force has been tin* continual drifting of the farmers of New Zealand into sheep-fanning. This has been almost tho only remunerative form of farming for some time past, and it employs very little labour. Tho present advance in the price of cereals in lluropu is only a spurt, and will not last two year--, and f see no farming likely to bo profitable in New Zealand for years to come, other than sheep-farm-ing, 1 >airying cannot atford hired labour. Fruit-fanning appears prospectively to be tho most hopeful auxiliary, but it cannot employ many people for years to come, or stop tho present exodus. Attempted manufactures will not stop it. The highly protected manufactures of New Zealand can never compete with Knglisli manufacture in anv other than Now Zealand market*, aud therefore can never produce or snpijnrt a largo manufacturing population. J.ho greatest effjet of the oppressive tariff is the impoverishment of the most numerous part of the people—the agricultural population—for the benefit of a few. Most of the miscellaneous industries started in New Zoaland have been disastrous failures, j as I havo known, to my sorrow, and there is not much courage left for new ventures. No doubt tho rascally brood of promoters could manufacture tempting traps, if shareholders could be induced to walk into them. There is an eager demand for land from tho families of old settlers, as the competition at the sales or lettings of all Government land testifies. But where is tho supply to meet this demand? I hear in many conversations amongst farmers that thero is a bit of good land near so and so, but the knowledge is not to be made public. Ihe men seeking these bits of land are not speculators, but persons necking places on which to raise a hou.c. Tho (rlobo Assets C<onipany and similar companies who wish to soli, and farmers' sons who wish to buy, cannot meet on mutually advantageous terms. Very few farmers' sons could raise the money for tho desired purchase, but with a little paternal help they might have or form in some way a home ont of the wilderness. Tho (Hobo Assets Company have dono a very wise thing in endeavouring to bring their largo estates into cultivation. As most of my readers know, the Globo Assets Company was originated by the Hank of New Zealand having to take over large properties on which it haa aavanced great sums of mone.y. Tho original purchasers of these properties were either land speculators or persons who aimed at emulating the land magnates of England. Neither they nor tho Hank directors seem to have been aware of tho valueless nature of this land-most of it not wotth a penny an acre until labour was put into it. these lands fell into tho hands of tho hank, it found it had got a lot of veritable white elephants. They ate up tho greater part of the valuo of its shnres, and nearly ate up the Bank itself. It has rocovcred itself in some measuro by returning to its legitimate trade-that of assisting all classes of active business, mercantile or farming. The Assets Company, .seeing that the only way in which they could make their vast estate* remunerative would bo to bring them into profitable cultivation of some kind or other, have set themselves with a determined will to do so. As far as I am able to judge, they have chosen Admirable managers. If the*o estates can be made to pay, they will make them pay, it onlv they are not troubled by the men who write long reports. I think they will be made to p.iy as agricultural properties if they cannot be sold, if they are sold lam afraid they will not be sold in small lots to working farmers. There will bo a considerable number of working men employed in redeeming these estates from the wilder* tiess. After that they will become principally sheep runs. The managers will probably make tlm estates pay desnahle dividends. Tho dividends will principally go to Kngland. The managers and servants will probably nt first be well paid, but companies are always ruled by the merciless axioms of political economy, and one cannot say what may happen in the future. The population on these largo estates, from the managers to the humblest boy, will be merely hirelings. The prospect is not pleasing.—Yours, ifcc., Jus. J. Baui'GH.