The Proper Way to Encourage Native Industries.

But, I am going to show you many ways of encouraging native industries which are not flying in the face of common sense or of the laws of nature, but are rather in conformity with both I lay it down as a sound principle that every country should produce, and can only profitably produce, those things for the product of which it has special advantages If another country has a greater advantage than ourselves for producing a certain article, it is wisdom on our part rather to cease production of it and give in exchange for it other things that we can produce more advantageously. If we look at this magnificent colony—for I say it is the most magnificent country in the world (applause)—what do we see? I am not one of your croakers who are inclined to sited own and shed tears over the position of the colony I do not intend to follow the example of these men who are whining about our prospects. We have a population which is not equaled by any other population in the world, and we have a climate not equalled by any other climate in the world Our soil for productiveness is not to be equalled anywhere. We have, too, the most valuable minerals in the world, and if, with all these advantages in our favour, we cannot make a living in it, we should be shot through the head as hopeless incapables, and he sooner we are shot the better. (Laughter and applause) We have grand forces in this country, both in the way of natural resources and a magnificent population, but we want high intelligence to direct them. We want knowledge how to take advantage of our enormous resources, and how to turn them to the best account. I will show you industries that do want encouragement, and to encourage which will prove a source of profit and of power to us. Take one. There are the minerals of New Zealand. In the Coromandel peninsula alone we have a [unclear: vist] mine of wealth if properly handled, and if we had men of high intelligence, capacity, and with a sense of responsibility, controlling the destinies of the country, we should hare had the nut in that peninsula cracked and that wealth utilised long ago. It is simply a disgrace to us, as Englishmen, that we should be banded together as a community and nation, and see that magnificent a set lying idle because none of us are clear enough to crack that nut. The mines have been usually carried on by private enterprie, but the solving of the problem, on the solution of which so much depends, requires and amount of money and of resources which to private parties in the colony have. Nor, my opinion is that it would be a much wiser policy to place a sufficient sum at the disposal of the Minister of Mines to enable him to solve this problem for New Zealand, than to spend, as we are now doing, a sum of £276,000 in ignorant and abortive tempts to foster industries which are economically unprofitable, and for which the country possesses no natural advantage whatever.

If I am returned to Parliament, my effect should be to encourage and develop or true native industries, and that in a fashion different altogether from that which has hitherto been tried. (Loud applause.) Evn at present we can take the rough ore ad send it to England to be treated scientically in the old country with profit. Its an absolute disgrace to the public men of page 8 New Zealand that a single moment is lost in setting going at the public cost the machinery that will bring to us the knowledge which we so much need, and will be so valuable to us. Instead of letting it remain in Germany, we should bring it here—by the hair of the head, if necessary—and put it down at Coromandel. If there was placed on the Estimates even so small a sum as £10,000 to be set at the disposal of the Minister of Mines, it might be spent in such a way that the colony would reap £10,000,000 from that £10,000. I would rather see our population taking picks in their hands and working under the free light of heaven, developing the mineral wealth of the colony, and breathing the fresh air, than have them in mobs of 200 or 300 men shut up in ill-ventilated rooms pegging boots. (Laughter.) I would not be ashamed tomorrow to turn out and dig for gold. I have done so before now, and it is a very good occupation. No man need be ashamed to work with his hands. It is a noble thing, and it enlarges the soul, if it is done under the light of heaven. But to shut yourselves up in a foul atmosphere, and, sitting in cramped postures, to peg away all day at boots, is something alien to the true spirit of colonists. It would gladden my heart if every man shut up in a factory were to be set loose from it to-morrow and placed upon the Coromandel Peninsula with a pick in his hand. That is the stuff of which the old colonials were made. The climate of New Zealand is something almost invaluable in itself. There is no such a climate anywhere else in this part of the world.

Why do we not take up the production of olive oil? We might have millions made by the production of olive oil, in the province of Auckland. But it is a difficult thing to introduce. It is all very well to tell you that you can make a lot of money by the growing of olives. It is all very well to publish a little information about this or that, but those who see below the surface find out how difficult it is to change the habits of the people. The Englishman derives his habits from a long ancestry, and it is very difficult to get him out of the grooves of his agriculture. Although this part of the colony is not so well adapted for rye, oats, wheat, as for other products, yet the settlers stick to these products and will not attempt anything new. The reason is that they cannot, for you cannot shove into a man ideas which he has never understood, nor can you change his habits easily. But if he sees the thing done before his eyes—sees the profits made in other directions — then it is quite another story. You will then bring to bear upon him arguments that he cannot resist, and in this way you will change the habits of the people. If there was in this colony, as there should be, a Minister of Agriculture, and I had command of the portfolio, I should press the House to grant me a sum of money tor experiments in olive culture and vine growing. I should send home to Europe and bring out men who really understood their business, and demonstrate practically before the very eyes of the people of the colony what our true native industries could, if prosecuted, accomplish. I say in regard to olive culture and wine growing, that there is not the slightest use in talking to Hodge. (Laughter.) I do not mean Billy Hodge. (Renewed laughter.) I mean the typical Hodge of England and of the colonies. It is no use talking to him, and telling him what he can do with olives, or that he can produce a large cask of wine more profitably than bags of wheat. He has no knowledge of these things and properly enough declines to try them. But you could go and bring out to the country the men who have the knowledge and ask them to give us ocular demonstration. A little money might be spent in a way that would be advantageous to the province of Auckland and to the colony at large upon those industries.

Then take silk. It cannot be produced unless you have mulberry trees. It would be a very simple thing to give a bonus for a few years for the settlers to plant mulberry trees. In a few years you might have enough food for introducing silkworms to New Zealand on a large scale. We talk a great deal about silk, but we do not move a finger to do anything practical. Take beetroot. It is difficult to get our farmers to try new products and new methods, but by showing them the commercial success that would attend this industry we might have a large manufacture of beet sugar in New Zealand. There are other industries that might be enumerated. For instance, in the southern part of the colony, which I know the best, there is no portion of the world which can grow potatoes like those produced in the district around Oamaru and from there to Kakanui. I have seen them sold as low as 25s a ton, and from the potatoes grown there, we might make all the starch that is needed in the world, if we had only intelligence brought to bear, and things gone about in a proper way. That would not be by imposing protective duties. I would put the thing plainly. I would seek, in suitable cases, to demonstrate by experiment that the thing could be done, and done well, and for the encouragement of those who embarked in certain industries, where such a course would be properly applicable, I would recommend Parliament to allow five or even ten per cent, for a limited number of years on the capital invested.

Then we should know at once and exactly what we had to pay for them, but with these confounded protective duties, one can never know when they will be taken off. Then take salmon, for I know a great deal about fish and a little about salmon. If the introduction of salmon were gone properly about, and we took no denial of the matter, going in for salmon just as I am going in for the Eden seat (laughter)—determined to succeed—if we bend all our energies to accomplish our purpose, we will have the salmon just in the same way as I am going to have the Eden seat. (Renewed laughter.) I might go on multiplying lines in which, without forfeiting our self-respect as colonial hands, we could go and do good work in this grand colony without turning ourselves into manufacturing slaves, and having the vice, misery and degradation of those towns where men are herded together in factories, a thing which as a colonist I utterly hate to contemplate.