This eBook is a reproduction produced by the National Library of New Zealand from source material that we believe has no known copyright. Additional physical and digital editions are available from the National Library of New Zealand.
EPUB ISBN: 978-0-908329-74-8
PDF ISBN: 978-0-908332-70-0
The original publication details are as follows:
Title: Prize essays on the industries of New Zealand.
Published: Govt. Printer, Wellington, N.Z., 1886
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION,
188 5.
PRIZE ESSAYS ON THE INDUSTRIES OF NEW ZEALAND.
PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY.
WELLINGTON
By Authority: George Didsbury, Government Printer.
1886.
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION,
18 8 5.
PRIZE ESSAYS ON THE INDUSTRIES OF NEW ZEALAND.
PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY.
WELLINGTON:
By Authority: Geoege Didsbdbi, Government Printer.
1 8 86.
[Extract from New Zealand Gazette of Jan. 2, 1885.]
New Zealand Industrial Exhibition, 1885.
PEIZE ESSAYS
The Treasury,
Wellington, 29th December, 1884.
One gold medal and twenty guineas, one silver medal and ten guineas, and one bronze medal and five guineas will be awarded for essays on the present condition and future prospects of the industrial resources of New Zealand, and the best means of fostering their development.
In judging of the merits of the essays preference will be given to those which are of a practical character, rather than to mere abstract or theoretical disquisitions. The essays must he sent in to the Secretary of the Exhibition, signed with a motto and accompanied by a sealed envelope containing the author’s name and address, on or before the Ist day of December, 1885. This late date is fixed to enable the essayists, if they desire to do so, to utilize the information which the Exhibition itself will supply.
The essays will be submitted to a Board of three persons, to be hereafter appointed, on whose decision respecting the merits of the essays the above prizes wall he awarded; provided the essays reach a sufficientlydeserving standard of excellence.
Julius Yogel,
Colonial Treasurer.
REPORT OF THE JUDGES.
Government Buildings,
Wellington, lltb March, 1886.
Sir,- —
We, having been duly appointed by you to decide on the merits of the several essays sent in under the conditions notified in the Government Gazette of the I9tb February, 1885, “ On the Present Condition and Future Prospects of the Industrial Resources of New Zealand,” and having carefully considered such essays, award as follows :
1. The essays under the respective mottoes of “ Si sit prudentia” and “Press onward” to be of equal merit, and we recommend that the authors should equally share the first and second prizes;
2. The essay under the motto “ Nunquam dormio ” to be third in merit, and entitled to the third prize.
We beg to enclose the successful essays, and their respective mottoes.
We have, &c.,
W. J. M. Larnach.
James Edward FitzGerald^
T. Kennedy Macdonald.
The Hon. Sir Julius Vogel, K.C.M.G.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
New Zealand Industries. The Past, the Present, and the Future. By Richard Winter. Motto—“Si sit prudentia” 3
The Present Condition and Future Prospects of the Industrial Resources of New Zealand, and the best Means of fostering their Development. By William Reeve Haselden. Motto—“Press onward” 37
The Present Condition and Future Prospects of the Industrial Resources of New Zealand, and the best Means of fostering their Development. By George Robert Hart. Motto—“Nunquam dormio” 105
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE.
AN ESSAY; BY RICH AED WINTER.
“ Si sit prudentia.”
PART I.
The Attitude of the State
In an essay treating of the practical side of the progress and future prospects of New Zealand industries, it is desirable to avoid dwelling to any extent upon the politico-economical or theoretical views which are held in regard to the comparative merits of absolute free-trade and modified protection. The question cannot, however, he avoided altogether; and before practical working suggestions are made, and before a fair retrospect of the past can be taken, the ground must be cleared by laying down certain theoretical lines to work upon.
It is still a fallacy to believe that a country is necessarily the poorer because its imports exceed its exports, or richer because its exports exceed its imports. The doctrine of the economists, stated in its naked simplicity, is still that “ the only direct advantage of foreign commerce consists in the imports. A country obtains things which it either could not have produced at all, or which it must have produced at a greater expense of capital and labour than the cost of things which it exports to pay for them/'* It is still a “ vulgar theory ” to disregard this advantage ; though it is to he feared that theorists, whose ideas are " caviare to the general,” have too frequently disregarded
* J. S. Mill’s “ Political Economy,” Book 11., chapter 17, section 4.
I
PRIZE ESSAYS.
the indirect advantages of diminishing the imports hy means of native industries, and have, especially in the case of a new country, treated the matter upon the strictest principle of individualism, and as though it were entirely one between the consumer and the importing merchant. It is true that a “ country produces an exportable article in excess of its own wants from no inherent necessity, but as the cheapest mode of supplying itself with other things.” If this he so, then the older economists—had they been acquainted with the conditions of life in a colony such as New Zealand—should have paid more attention to the theory of trade which seeks to foster an extended market for its produce, an abundant consumption for its goods, and a vent for its surplus. If a colony is in that earlier stage when its exports are increasing, and new markets are looming for its produce, it is fair to expect that the imports of articles such as there is no inherent obstacle against producing in the colony itself should begin to decline. It is only common-sense to imagine that, if they do not decline, there is something wrong in the social system. National wealth does not consist merely in the saving of price to consumers of imported goods. It would he easy to show by New Zealand instances that large imports, low prices, reduced wages, and insufficient employment too frequently go together. “ A people ” —to again quote John Stuart Mill —“ may he in a quiescent, indolent, uncultivated state, with all their tastes either fully satisfied or entirely undeveloped, and they may fail to put forth the whole of their productive energies for want of any sufficient object of desire. The opening of a foreign trade, hy making them acquainted with new objects, or tempting them hy the easier acquisition of things which they had not previously thought obtainable, sometimes works a sort of industrial revolution in a country whose resources were previously undeveloped for want of energy and ambition in the people; inducing those who were satisfied with scanty comforts and little w'ork, to work harder for the gratification of their new tastes, and even to save and accumulate capital for the still more complete satisfaction of those tastes at a future time.”
All this is true to a great extent of a new country with large natural resources, a population increasing hy native growth and immigration, and a rising generation from whom employment cannot be withheld without greater dangers to the social fabric
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
5
than would attend a similar want of employment in an older country.
And here it may bo well to remark upon the fallacy of the argument that, because —upon a more or less imperfect calculation—New Zealand contains 323,000 people engaged in agriculture to only 11,400 artisans or workers in factories. State encouragement to native industries must necessarily he for the purpose of protecting the latter and keeping them in employment at the expense of the former. Of the 323,000 in question a very large proportion consists of general labourers, having neither interest in the soil nor special knowledge of agriculture. It is a mere accident that such people rank among the farming class, and they are more likely to carry their labour to factories and such-like industries were such in existence for them. New Zealand needs population, and under liberal land laws would he certain to get the kind she requires. Of the mass of men it is probable that a minority alone is fitted to settle on or till the land ; local industries and factories would find employment not only for all the surplus labour in the colonies, hut for a very much larger number of hands.
The strict enforcement of the laissez faire principle on the part of the Government of New Zealand may encourage low prices for the necessaries of life—though not to the extent which has been supposed-—for a few years to come. A judicious fostering of colonial industries, whether as means of producing articles for colonial consumption or for foreign markets, will tend to increase national wealth and the happiness of the individual, by developing profitable employment and encouraging thrift, without interfering unduly with the labour market or the natural ehh and flow of trade, and without affecting to any appreciable degree the prices paid by the consumer.
The object to be aimed at is, that the foreign demand for New Zealand commodities should exceed the New Zealand demand for foreign commodities. However different the conditions of this problem may he in an old country, it can only he solved in a colony by developing every possible form of native industry, and by gradually and judiciously bringing every national resource into play.
We cannot force the consumer to buy domestic commodities in preference to foreign. The consumer is justified in buying
,6
PRIZE ESSAYS.
the foreign article so long as it is either cheaper or better, even though this plan, if persisted in, might throw the social conditions of a colony entirely out of gear by presenting the strange anomaly of large fortunes, large bodies of unemployed, and low prices all existing at the same time. But the State is equally justified, without prohibiting importation or imposing duties which prevent it, in encouraging the native production of goods so that they can be sold to the consumer as cheap and as good as the foreign article. Practically speaking, whatever the economist (writing almost entirely about life in an old and settled land) may say, the limited amount of State interference which is now advocated simply means that colonial goods must be produced for a short period, until the industry is firmly established, at a cost which the whole community will have to pay in the shape of bonuses, or which must fall upon the consumers by means of a Customs tariff. In the one case the cost, being spread over a large population, would not be felt: in the other case the consumer would suffer very slightly, and it would be at his discretion, in many instances, whether he suffered at all.
Under this view of the matter the Government of New Zealand would he justified not only in encouraging colonial industries hy imposing protective duties temporarily, and where such industries are suitable to the circumstances of the colony—a policy admitted to be defensible—but in doing so by bonuses as well as tariffs. The Government would also be justified in using its influence, on behalf of the nation, in obtaining information from foreign countries regarding particular industries, in establishing a system of technical education in the colony, and in taking steps to open up markets for New Zealand produce, whether in portions of the British Isles which it has not yet reached, in the Islands of the Pacific and the Malay seas, or amongst the teeming millions of the Indian Empire.
If the view already advocated he not conceded, then the Government is not justified in doing anything else hut hny in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market, and see that everything is done to encourage and nothing done to hinder its people from doing so also. It would be a violation of free-trade for the State to limit the hours of employment in factories, or do anything else which might tend to restrict production or interfere with the law of supply and demand. It would be equally
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
Ft 7
wrong to employ the funds of the whole community in maintaining an agricultural college in order to teach one particular part of it how to earn their living or acquire an advantage over the rest.
The strict doctrine of free-trade may he scientifically correct as a paper theory; hut, in a new country, it is a reductio ad nhsurdum, even although an array of economists may break a lance in its favour. The circumstances of New Zealand require wiser and more generous treatment ; a policy which shall seize opportunities and look ahead, and a Government which shall not continue to “let well” so severely “alone” that it ceases in the end to he “ well ” at all.
Having defined the attitude of the State towards New Zealand industries, the matter can be dealt with in its practical aspects.
PART 11.
What has been hone
It needs no exercise of the imaginative faculties, but simply the ordinary capacity of observation with which the average man is gifted, to recognize the wonderful progress in industries and productive powers which New Zealand has made of late years. It is not necessary to dwell upon the earlier days, when order was emerging from chaos, and when the colonist was too much habituated to the arts of war to cultivate the arts of peace, and when industries and manufactories were not dreamed of amid the struggle for hare existence. For the purposes of this essay it is enough to survey the work of the last ten to fifteen years, during which the export of wool, gold, grain, hides, and tallow has grown to such dimensions that New Zealand ranks among the foremost-producing countries of the world. During that period one entirely new industry in the world’s history—the export of frozen meat —has come into existence ; and, under somewhat altered conditions, and allowing for the fluctuations of the markets, is destined to assume gigantic proportions in New Zealand. The frozen-meat industry is now as firmly established as the production and export of grain and wool. The raw material is abundant, and the capacity for production immense; hut, in the case of all three kinds of produce, the market has been equally depressed. Such times of depression
8
PRIZE ESSAYS.
must exist, though in minor forms, even when New Zealand frozen meat has surmounted the obstacles which still attend it, and when the grievous burden of excessive freights, and the existence of rings of middlemen, have been removed. New Zealand will always be open to the competition of pastoral countries nearer to the European market; though, if her trade be cleared of its present impediments, the fluctuations of the markets will be readier known and more accurately anticipated. The State can do no more for the frozen-meat trade than has already been done, except to open up, by national agency and inquiry, fresh markets in Asia and other parts of the world. But in the quality of the article, the condition in which it is exported, its adaptability to the English palate, and the facility with which it is taken direct to the consumer will, in the future, lie the main elements of the success of New Zealand’s trade in frozen meat. Of the frozen-meat trade, as of the export of wool, grain, and other staple products. New Zealand can re-echo the words with which the Loan and Mercantile Company conclude their annual review of the trade and commerce of San Francisco for the year 1884', and say that, although the low prices ruling for the past two years have been a serious drawback to the prosperity of the colony, yet the bounteous yield has enabled the industrious to maintain their footing, and if repeated in future years will enable producers to cover previous losses, and bring over previous obligations, that were, for a time, a grievous burden to carry.
The value of the export of New Zealand wool in 1884 was £3,267,527, exceeding the previous year hy £252,066; gold exceeded the previous year hy £96,508; hides by £16,162; skins by £27,861; salted beef by £6,682 ; tallow by £1,272 ; kauri-gum by £5,545; and frozen meat by £226,801. In the last-named industry the export was nearly three times that of the previous year. On the other hand, the export of wheat fell off by no less than £630,581, or nearly 60 per cent. Land devoted to wheat-growing had for the most part been given up to grazing and to the frozen-meat industry though, as oats increased by £96,473, that cereal had apparently taken the place of wheat to some extent. Barley fell off by £5,209 ; but it is notorious that large stocks were held in the colony ready for better times, instead of being sent to a low and falling Home market. There
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
9
is nothing unsatisfactory, therefore, in the present position of New Zealand’s staple products; and the exports are calculated to profoundly impress the observer with a sense of her material resources, and the healthy flow of capital which has taken place to develop them.
The growth of new exporting industries deserves fuller consideration than can be given it in the present essay. In 1884 butter to the value of £66,593, and cheese to the value of £25,095, were exported, showing an increase on the previous year of £24,503 in the one case and £18,163 in the other. The dairy factories of New Zealand are yet in their infancy, and there is no industry which ought more to engage the attention and capital of the small producer. So also with bacon and hams, for which the colony is acquiring a special reputation, and the export of which increased in 1884 by £4,159.
The decline in New Zealand flax was very marked, and must continue as the products of imported civilization supplant the raw material of untilled land. Potted and preserved meats declined by £13,554, partly owing to the trade having been supplanted by the frozen meat, and partly by the remarkably low' prices ruling at Home for those choicer and more special potted delicacies which the colony is so well able to produce.
Nor is it only in the exporting industries that the progress of New Zealand has been so marked during the past fifteen years. With the growth of population has come a healthy demand for local industries, and there are districts dotted with factories, some of which, such as those for woollen goods, hold their own with any in the world. In the New Zealand woollen trade one factory has exported goods to Victoria, and sold them at a profit; another has sent a shipment to Glasgow, and a third has sent one to London. There are not wanting signs, even in the present depression and stagnation of capital, that the woollen trade is capable of great extension. Its success in the colony has been greatly due, in the opinion of the manager of one of the largest factories, to the State protection hitherto accorded it. The same authority considers that, if the import duty on apparel and woollens were increased, the New Zealand trade would drive out the imported article, increase the out-put of existing factories, bring into life new ones, lessen the cost of
10
PRIZE ESSAYS.
woollens and clothing, and give employment to a very lame number of hands. 8
Nor ought the agricultural implement industry to bo passed over in silence. It has been stated that one firm‘in the South Island pays away in wages £20,000 a year
The iron and metal trade is another industry of which New Zealand has reason to he proud, for such work as is turned out by Messrs. Burt, of Dunedin, or Messrs. Scott, of Christchurch, need not fear comparison with anything in Birmingham, the metropolis of hardware.
In soap and candles the finest articles are now made; while twenty years ago nothing but tallow dips and common yellow soap were made in the colony.
In leather, boots and shoes, and saddlery the progress has been really startling. Prom figures quoted by the Hon. Robert Stout in his speech at the closing of the Wellington Exhibition it appears that in 1864 the colony imported about three hundred thousand pounds’ worth of these articles. In 1884, though the population had increased from 184,131 in 1864 to 608,401 persons, the imports of leather, boots and shoes, and saddlery amounted to only £251,267, while hides and skins were imported to a large extent. Facts like these are pregnant with hope and encouragement.
So also with carpets, the manufacture of which in New Zealand is quite of recent date, but is already a flourishing industry, producing articles of sound, durable, and beautiful workmanship, and competing in price with the Home importations.
There are no statistics available to show the number of hands employed, or the value of the land, buildings, machinery, and plant engaged in the manufactories and works of this colony at the present time; nor will such statistics be at the public disposal until after the census has been taken in March next. But between the years 1878 and 1881, the date of the last census, the progress was striking. The number of hands employed increased from 15,177 to 17,938, or a total of 2,701 : and the number of manufactories and works from 1,271 to 1,643, or a total of 372. In April, 1881, the capital sunk in land and buildings was £1,993,330, and in machinery and plant £1,612,141, showing an increase, since April, 1878, of £231,636
11
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
in the one case and £322,763 in the other. There can be little doubt that the increase from 1881 to the present time has at least been equal to that between 1878 and 1881.
As will be seen when the imports come to be considered, the local industries are remodelling the trade of the colony. On every side there are busy producers with brain and hand, capital and machinery ; and that it should be possible to collect together such wonderfully-varied industrial exhibits as those in the Wellington Exhibition of 1885 testifies to the industrial progress of the colony. Stimulated by what has been done. New Zealand determines to do more; her success as a producer and manufacturer in a few things is leading her to direct her energies to many. Proceeding steadily upon the lines of policy already indicated, her industrial future is bright and hopeful, and within measurable distance she may contain within herself a manufacturing population without poverty, and natural uvealth without glaring inequalities of distribution. She must be wary and watchful, and on the alert to seize ideas of improvement in existing industries as well as schemes for promoting new ones. It is within the scope of this essay to consider some of the ways in which this can be done, and they will receive attention presently.
PART 111,
Equalizing Imports and Exports.
Although in nearly every civilized country —the remarkable exceptions being America and Germany, great Protectionist countries, where the exports exceed the imports in the one case hy twenty millions a year and in the other hy four millions—the imports exceed the exports, yet the proportion of excess is hut small in progressive countries established upon sound fiscal principles. One would expect to find that in the colonies, as industries develop and production increases, the imports and exports would gradually become equalized, more especially if the conditions and policy prevail which have already been indicated. Accordingly it will be found that in the Australasian Colonies the imports and exports have of late years approximated very nearly to one another. Taking the mean of ten years, from 1873 to 1882, the imports exceeded the exports —in Victoria by £1 11s. 6d. per head of the population; in New South Wales by 18s.
12
PRIZE ESSAYS.
lOd. ; in South Australia by 3d.; and in Tasmania by 6s. 9d. In Queensland the exports exceeded the imports by 16s. sd. per head, and in Western Australia by £1 18s. 6d. Taking the above period of ten years, the imports of New Zealand exceeded the exports by £4 3s. —a proportion far in excess of that in any other colony. In 1882, the last of the ten years in question, the excess was £3 16s. Bd. But during the last two years there has been a marked change, and imports and exports are becoming as equalized as in the other colonies, the excess of imports over exports being £1 10s. per head in 1883, and only 18s. 9d. in 1884. Making full allowance for other causes, it is still evident that the growth of New Zealand industries has left its mark on her commercial returns.
PART IV
Imports and Industries.
The value of the articles imported into New Zealand during the year 1884 was £7,663,888, being about 4 per cent, less than those imported during the previous year, when the total was £7,974,038.
For the convenience of this essay the articles imported may be divided into three classes ; In Class A (vide Table No. 1) will be found goods the manufacture or production of which is already a settled industry in New Zealand.
In Class B [vide Table No. 2) will be found goods the manufacture or production of which is not yet fully established in New Zealand, or, though possible and desirable to be established, has not yet been initiated.
In Class C will be placed all other articles imported into the ■colony, including those which are too trifling and unimportant to consider; those which could not possibly be manufactured or produced in the colony; and those which, though possible to he manufactured or produced in the colony, are required by custom nr fashion to he imported into it.
It is obviously difficult to draw a sharp dividing line between these classes, but it is believed that it has been fairly attempted in the tables annexed to this essay. Fashion and custom regulate the place of production and manufacture in some cases
13
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
even more than the materials of which goods are made or the mode in which they are manufactured. This would alone render the task of classifying the imports difficult and uncertain; but, so far as can be ascertained with anything like accuracy, goods regulated solely or almost entirely by the caprice of custom or fashion have been relegated to Class C.
The progress which has been made in manufactures and in opening up the industrial resources of the colony can be readily seen from a study of the first class of imports. The total of that class was—in 1883, £1,776,765, and in 1884, £1,526,312. Although the population of the colony, including Maoris, increased from 584,974 to 608,401, or about 4 per cent., the imports in Class A decreased by £250,453, or about 14 per cent. The decrease was very marked in some instances, even after allowing for diminished consumption through financial depression, for the disuse of particular kinds of goods, and for overimportation in the previous year.
Agricultural implements decreased from £47,432 to £16,412, or 65 per cent,; wearing apparel, from £263,849 to £197,789, or 25 per cent.; boots and shoes, from £168,383 to £143,840, or 14 \ per cent. ; carpets, from £41,267 to £28,376, or 31 per cent. ; cordage, from 16,615 to £14,236, or 14 per cent.; earthenware, from £42,396 to £24,378, or 41 per cent.; furniture, and upholstery, from £65,571 to £48,079, or 27 per cent. ; hardware and ironmongery, from £245,560 to 177,910, or 29 per cent.; jams and jellies, from £18,759 to £10,552, or 43i per cent.; linseed oil, from £20,436 to £17,350, or 14i per cent.; picture frames and mouldings, from £3,779 to £3,243, or 14 per cent. ; saddlery, from £43,871 to £32,204, or 26 per cent.; sulphuric acid, from £363 to £157, or 57 percent.; tinware, from £6,117 to £4,932, or 19 per cent. ; tobacco, from £81,705 to £63,851, or 22 per cent. ; cigars, from £25,809 to £23,119, or 11 per cent.; twine (not binding, but common), from £9,625 to £7,974, or 17 per cent.; vegetables, from £6,865 to £5,601, or 18 per cent. ; woollens, from £100,222 to £75,151, or 25 per cent. ; and blankets, from £29,702 to £25,370, or 15 per cent.
Even after making liberal allowance for the other operating causes already alluded to, and especially for the over-importation of the year 1883, it still remains an unquestionable fact that a vastly greater proportion of the articles consumed in New
14
PRIZE ESSAYS.
Zealand was manufactured or produced by the people of the colony in 1884 than in 1883.
Had manufactures and the development of industrial resources remained at a standstill during the past year the imports should have kept pace with the increase of the population. But, as already remarked, the value of the imports in Class A, instead of being 4 per cent, greater in 1884 than in 1883, was actually 14 per cent. less. A fact like this is worth a volume of theories, and points unmistakably to the progress the colony is making, to the wisdom of the steps taken in the past to quicken its manufactures and industries, and to the desirability of putting forth renewed and more vigorous efforts to quicken and encourage them in the future.
In the case of some articles of common consumption included in Class A the result is not so encouraging.
There has been an increased importation of candles to the amount of 65 per cent.; carriages, 36 per cent; coals, 23 per cent.; flour, 62 per cent.; leather, 15 per cent. ; pickles, 18 per cent. ; railway carriages, 1,050 per cent.; and common soap, 120 per cent.
With the exception, perhaps, of candles, an industry which deserves the protective fostering of the State to a larger extent than it has hitherto received, there is nothing calling for anxiety in any of these articles.
With regard to candles, it is the opinion of the largest firm of New Zealand makers that increased duty on the imported article would cause a larger quantity of the raw material to be used up, and employment to be found for a greater number of hands.
The further opening-up of the colony by trunk railways, which cannot long be delayed, should increase the consumption 'of New Zealand coal by bringing it to the consumers’ doors, and should render certain districts less dependent on a foreign supply.
— r o rrv Carriages are very much governed by fashion, and the date when the colonial article will supersede the Home import must necessarily be remote, though marked progress has been made in this industry in New Zealand.
The complicated laws which govern the distribution of food — laws which are intimately bound up with the low prices of agricultural produce—present the singular anomaly of a gralu-produc-
15
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
ing colony increasing its imports of flour. So long, however, as a loaf made of New Zealand flour can he sold cheaper in London than in the colony itself, we cease to wonder at, though we deplore, the increased importation of flour. With better home markets for the New Zealand farmer may come a more healthy condition of the trade in flour, and better times for the consumer.
The increased import of leather is an unsatisfactory fact, indicating as it does that, however excellent the tanned article produced in the colony may he, the tide of capital has not yet flowed into this most important industry. There are signs, however, that tanning extract from native woods, especially in the Pelorus Sounds, will become an article of commerce; and that bark-crushing, for which a factory has recently been started at Nelson, will take its place am6ng New Zealand industries.
With regard to railway carriages, the State can directly aid in developing the industry by offering to colonial workmen contracts for building carriages for the railways upon favourable conditions. There is a simplicity and saving of trouble connected with importing railway plant of all kinds, which is refreshing to the official mind ; but questions of policy as well as trade—of vivifying the labour market as well as economy in national expenditure—are involved in this matter, and cannot be overlooked in a country which is neither wholly free-trade nor wholly protectionist in its dealings with its own people and the outer world. Both with locomotives and carriages the Public Works Department would do well to liberally encourage colonial industry and the use of colonial material.
The increase in the importation of common soap is of no importance. But a small and fluctuating quantity is imported in any year, the New Zealand article having triumphed over its European and Australian rivals, and practically driven them from the field. With judicious State encouragement, probably in the form of increased import duties, the importation of candles would soon become as insignificant as that of soap ; the price paid by the consumer would practically be undisturbed; labour would he employed and capital invested ; and the whole colony would receive the benefit in a prosperous people and an elastic revenue.
The increase in the importation of pickles is not in itself a matter of much importance, except for its apparent singularity.
16
TRIZE ESSAYS.
One would have supposed that, of all articles of common consumption, pickles would have been manufactured in the colony. It is possible, however, that, with all the advantages of cheap and abundant raw material, there arc certain trade secrets and peculiarities of fashion and custom connected with pickles which colonial manufacturers cannot at present contend against, however excellent the article which they have undoubtedly produced.
Upon the whole retrospect of the imports in Class A, comprising most of the articles of general colonial consumption, there is no reason to alter the note of encouragement and hope which in this essay has already been sounded.
Next has to be considered Class B, which includes articles the manufacture or production of which is not yet a fully established industry, or, though possible or desirable to be established, has not yet been initiated. It will not be possible within this essay to consider how the industry in all these articles can best be developed; but the principal articles will be dealt with at a later stage. Included in this class are sugar, iron, printing paper, silk, and olives, the production of which in this colony, as a commercial transaction, is so remote that a practical essay ought to devote little attention to them. Reference will, however, be made to them further on. Meantime it is well to point out that, while the total of the articles in Class B shows an increase (vide Table No. 3) of 6 per cent, over the previous year, there -was actually a falling-off in the imports in this class, excluding sugar, iron, printing paper, silk, and olives, of li per cent. It may be laid down as an established fact that the importation of some of the articles in Class B has received a check from the manufacture of similar articles in the colony, though, from various causes, that manufacture makes little progress. Following on the lines laid down earlier in this essay it will be necessary to show how such industries can receive healthy stimulation.
PART V
What can ue done in the Future
Reference lias already been made to the following industries in the course of this essay, and nothing further need be said about them; Agricultural implements, bacon and hams, boots
2
17
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
and shoes, butter and cheese, candles, carriages,' carpets, coal, flour, frozen meat, hardware, leather, pickles, railway carriages, saddlery, soap, tanning extract, and woollens.
It remains to consider certain other prominent industries in detail, with a view to show what, if anything, can be done to foster them in the future.
Acids.
Amongst the acids imported into New Zealand for manufacturing and other purposes tartaric acid—of which no less than 114,2591b., valued at £9,370, were imported during 1884—heads the list. The wine-making industry is not yet in a sufficiently advanced stage to enable this acid to be produced in payable quantities; but machinery should be imported, and steps taken to manufacture it contemporaneously with the increase in vineyards and wine-presses. The Government might offer a bonus for the production of the first 50 tons, in the same way as the manufacture of sulphuric acid was judiciously and successfully fostered. The effect, in case of sulphuric acid was very marked last year, when the imported article decreased from 24,1241b. to 10,7721b.
Of other acids, it is probable that citric acid, should the culture of lemons and citrons flourish in the colony, can be successfully extracted in New Zealand, instead of being imported.
Bonedust,
It seems almost inconceivable that last year 3,518 tons of bonedust, valued at £23,057, should have been imported into the colony for manure, when the unmanufactured product exists here already in such great quantities. The establishment of bonedust mills in all the districts of the colony, on the same principle that boiling-down establishments dot the country, would not involve any great outlay of capital, and would lead to greater care and economy in the collection and storage of bones, and to a good deal of labour being employed. It would be necessary, however, to impose a moderate import duty, and to offer a Government bonus for the production of the first five hundred or one thousand tons. The demand for bonedust increased last year, judging from the imports, by 30 per cent., and the increase is likely to continue.
18
PRIZE ESSAYS.
Brushware and Brooms.
Something has been done, but not very much, in the colonial manufacture of brushware and brooms. The import is still very large, reaching last year the value of £9,140. The division of labour has been so greatly perfected in this trade, and every branch of it has become so technically and strictly separate, that the State could best aid in promoting the industry at first by obtaining and publishing full information with regard to the trade in all its branches, and by offering a moderate bonus for the first large quantity of brushes or brooms, whether of hair or bristle, manufactured within the colony. In Victoria there were last year ten brush manufactories, employing 163 hands, and having £19,145 sunk in machinery, plant, land, and buildings.
Cement.
Notwithstanding the continued production of cement natural, such as the Mahurangi hydraulic lime, and artificial, in imitation of Portland cement —the importation into the colony is immense and increasing. Last year it reached 100,761 barrels, valued at £62,075, as against 74,997 barrels, valued at £52,902, in the previous year. Concrete is fast becoming, a favourite building and paving material, and in large towns seems destined to outstrip both brick and stone in supplanting wood for public edifices, and even for dwelling-houses. It is the opinion of those engaged in cement and lime-making in the colony that, as the prejudice in favour of a foreign article over a home article becomes broken down, and as skilled labour is to a greater extent employed in the manufacture, so as to render the strength of the New Zealand article more regular and certain, and not so liable to be affected by atmospheric conditions, there will be less and less need for fostering or protection to the industry. The great desideratum is that the cement should be capable of use without slacking, and without swelling in the setting. No bonus is necessary, but the present import duty should be maintained; and the Public Works Department and local governing bodies should, where practicable, allow New Zealand cement and hydraulic lime to be used, and in some cases should encourage their use in preference to imported Portland cement. That this industry is capable of great things may be inferred from what has been done by Messrs. Wilson, the proprietors of the Mahu-
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
19
rang! hydraulic-lime works. They commenced seven years ago to produce this natural cement, and in the first year only 7,000 bushels were sold. In the second year the amount increased to 23,000 ; and at the present time the sales are between 80,000 and 90,000 bushels a year, a quantity equal to 30,000 bushels of cement.
China and Porcelain Ware.
The difficulties which attend the manufacture of china in the colony are much of the same nature as those referred to in the ease of earthenware. It is certain that, although it is quite possible to produce excellent china in the colony, the industry could not be successful at the present time without import duties of a protective character. So strong would be the fashionable prejudice in favour of English-made china for a long time to come that, unless New Zealand-made goods could be offered to the public cheaper than the imported article, the industry would barely struggle into existence. In the opinion of a high practical authority, the time has not yet come for the manufacture of china; certainly not till the present depression and glutted market have passed away. Elaborate and costly machinery would have to be imported from England, together with skilled hands, such as printers, engravers, burnishers, &c. Particular kinds of flint and stone would have to be imported from England, and would have to be prepared ; and a similar and equally expensive process would have to be applied to the New Zealand clay. It is doubtful, therefore, whether capital, even with the assistance of State protection, could make out any return out of the china industry. The freight question has been referred to under the head of “ Earthenware ; ” and the difficulty is intensified by the fact that the freight out from Home is cheaper on china goods—which are, as a rule, smaller—than upon the common earthenware. New Zealand china would be too heavily handicapped against its imported rival.
Drugs.
The importation of drugs is very large, 4,525 packages, valued at E35,567, having been brought in last year, an amount very slightly in excess of that of the previous year. Of these drugs a large number are tinctures and other alcoholic preparations, which could be made up in the colony; but the present
30
PRIZE ESSAYS.
system of levying duties appears to hamper the trade and stand in the way of this being done. The case is best stated in the words of a pharmaceutical chemist of long experience both in England and New Zealand. He says, “ The English manufacturer is allowed to compound and distil these preparations from duty-free spirit in bond; in addition to which large quantities of similar compounds of German make, but of doubtful reputation, are imported, these latter having the recommendation of cheapness to those who are careless of quality. Colonial manufacturers are absolutely prohibited making similar compounds, as a heavy Customs duty, amounting to about £1 Is. per gallon on rectified spirit, must be paid at the outset. This completely puts us out of the pale of competition, and makes the supply of necessary drugs very much of a monopoly in the hands of a little knot of importers. The remedy is : Allow the manufacture of alcoholic tinctures, distilled spirits, and preparations in which alcohol is an important factor to be made in the colony with duty-free spirit in bond ; these, when removed from bond, to be charged with the ordinary 10 per cent, ad valorem duty. The Government could be no loser; the public would gain by the exclusion of inferior drugs; large sums in freight would be avoided; and the qualified colonial manufacturing chemist would stand a show in the competition.”
Earthenware.
Although, this industry has made great strides in New Zealand—and there are few large cities which do not possess earthenware and pottery works—and although the industry has apparently checked the importation from other countries and given employment to a large number of hands, it is still beset with difficulties. The success is, in fact, chiefly at present in the coarser kinds of earthenware; and it is much to be desired that the finer kinds of delf should be manufactured in the colony. The earthenware makers all give the same reasons fertile languishing state of the industry. They ask that the cost of transit of goods in the colony by rail should be reduced - y that an extra duty should be placed on imported delf; that facilities should be offered by the Government to induce skilled labourers to come out to the colony ; and that the . Government should offer a bonus on the first five hundred pounds’ worth of
21
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
goods turned out —say, for example, willow-pattern plates and equally common cups and saucers. Delf of every description, and equal to any imported article, was made at the Milton Pottery Works, Otago; but, from various causes, among which were, undeniably, the expense of getting materials on the ground, and the cost of carriage of goods after they were made, the ■company failed. The works are now in private hands, hut appear to languish. The bad state of the market at present, and the great over-importation of goods, has produced a glut which it will take a long time to work off, and which tells against the New Zealand industry. It is stated, however, that if the railway freights were reduced things would go ahead, by enabling works to be carried on close to good clay, by allowing the coal to be procured at a reduced price, and by enabling the manufactured goods to be sent to districts far remote from the works. At present the market is limited to the close vicinity of the manufactory through high freights. The limited supply of skilled labour is also a drawback. Potters have to be trained up from boyhood, as it requires great finish of hand and eye. There are few potters in the colony, and all of them came from the Home country; while it is said that it takes about three years for an apprentice to become of much use. The division of labour, although necessary for the production of good pottery, has' thrown upon the New Zealand manufacturer a heavy burden. A man may be very good at his own branch of the trade and of no use in any other; so that a full and varied complement of skilled artisans has to be procured. It is, of course, a matter of great expense and difficulty to fill the places of those men in the event of their leaving their employment. Excluding delf, there are few kinds of earthenware which are not produced easily and successfully in the colony. It needed merely a glance round the Wellington Exhibition to discover that. The works of Messrs. Austin, Kirk, and Co., of Christchurch, may be taken as a passing instance. They are manufacturers of crocks, jars, basins, bowls, bottles, teapots, jugs, filters, pie-dishes, spittoons, and many other kinds of domestic, useful, and ornamental pottery and earthenware. But even this firm, with all their extensive business, have discovered that, by reason of the heavy freights, they are too heavily handicapped against imported goods outside of their own provincial district. With a reduction of
22
PRIZE ESSAYS.
railway and water charges, and with an extra duty on imported delf, there is little doubt that several makers of earthenware would begin to produce the finer kinds of pottery, such as plates,, cups, and saucers.
Before leaving the subject of earthenware the suggestion may be made that many of the commoner varieties of clay tobaccopipes, notably the long “ churchwarden,” might be made in the colony. The pipeclay is found in many places, and the idea is worthy of consideration. A good many hands are employed in Kent and other parts of England in this industry, and the establishments are not always on a large scale. There ought to be no difficulty in making a beginning in New Zealand.
Fish (cured and tinned]
The valuable information given by Mr. J. Mackenzie and Messrs. Thomson Brothers, of Port Chalmers, Mr. James Rutland, of Picton, and Dr. Hector, which is contained in the Parliamentary Paper H.—ls, must lead every one to regret that greater progress has not been made in the fish curing and canning industry. Two facts are beyond (question.: that our New Zealand seas teem with fish of the most suitable kinds, easily procurable ; and that an excellent cured and canned article has already been produced, quite equal in cheapness, quality, and flavour to any importation. To encourage this industry the Government, deeming it of the first importance that a valuable food supply so close to our doors should not be neglected, have a bonus now under offer, which fish-curers in several parts of the colony are most anxious to compete for. Dr. Hector’s opinion (Vide his memorandum in Parliamentary Paper H.-15a) is that “ the natural wealth of the New Zealand fisheries is as yet almost undeveloped, and the efforts in this direction have been very crude, and entered on without'the least regard to the knowledge of the subject which is necessary. The establishment of small fishing communities in connection with fish-curing factories is what is required. . . . The most steady and largest outlet for the fisheries industry would he in canning fish for export on a large scale.” But, before Dr. Hector’s ideas can be realized, and the industry be established on a large scale in the great centres, the experiment of preserving and canning must be made by persons practically acquainted with it, and at places as near as
23
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
possible to tbc fishing grounds. Suitable buildings, plant, boats, and nets will be needed even for the smallest experiment; and, to begin with, it is far more likely that the experiment will be successful, conducted by a practical fisherman, even if he has to borrow the needful capital, than in a large factory run by capitalists at a distance from the waters where the fish are obtained. The State would therefore act wisely in giving assistance in other ways than that of offering a bonus, to enable the industry to grow up in such a place, for instance, as Queen Charlotte Sound. Let but one good fishing establishment be successfully started in such a locality, and there would be plenty of capital forthcoming to start others. At present a person engaged in the industry on a small scale is terribly hampered by the necessity of paying high interest on advances, and selling his fish through the middleman with his enormous profits. The owner of some fish-curing works, writing to the author of this essay, says, “ During this season I have cured 3,000 cases of herrings at a selling price of 10s. per case ; but, being under certain conditions for raising money to put up additional buildings to can that quantity, I am forced to accept an all-round price of 7s. per case. Thus, you will see, it costs me 4s. to get them ready for market. Is. for case, 2s. for profit ; while the merchant gets 3s. to 4s. per case for trading. This is where the rub comes in.” The same person is sanguine of the success of the industry, and, as a proof of the natural wealth of fish food, mentions that he had seen, during the past season, a patch of herrings two miles long by one mile wide. The State could best help the industry, in a case such as this, by advancing money, at a low rate of interest, upon security of his freehold premises and plant—in the same way as it has frequently been proposed to help the settler to make improvements in his land. It is no wonder that in the past the bonus offered for cured fish was suffered to lapse. It could not, as Dr. Hector shows, be taken up by capital, without special knowledge of the industry; and special knowledge cannot at present, unless the Government steps in to help, obtain the aid of capital except upon oppressive terms.
Fruit-preserving.—Jams and Jellies.
These industries are becoming firmly established in the colony, though enormous quantities of bottled and preserved
24
PRIZE ESSAYS
fruit, and of jams and jellies, are still imported. There is no kind of produce for whicji New Zealand is naturally better fitted .than fruit, and the success of jam factories in some parts of the colony, and the high quality of the preserved fruits exhibited in the Wellington Exhibition, prove that both capital and skill have been brought to bear. It is not altogether satisfactory to reflect that in this colony, largely composed of small fruitgrowing settlers, who should easily find a market for their produce, no less than 440,9921b. of jam were imported last year, the value being set down at £10,552.. There is not a penny of this large sum that need have been sent out of the colony for food of this nature. Two things stand in the way of the industry. Insect blights on the fruit trees have increased to such an extent that the loss to fruit-growers, and especially to small settlers in Nelson and Marlborough, must be reckoned by thousands of pounds. Fruit-growers are also unfairly handicapped by boiled fruit-pulp coming into the colony free of duty. To meet *the latter difficulty the same duty should be imposed as iJiat upon bottled fruits; and to meet the former plague the Government should cause to be circulated all over the colony, in large numbers, copies of the valuable report of the Codlin Moth Committee last session, and of Professor Kirk’s equally valuable report upon insect blights. The outlay which this circulation would involve might be considered as a judicious investment in the public interest, especially if done at the right time of the year.
Glass,
The impediments presented by high freights, over-importa-tion of foreign goods, and scarcity of skilled labour apply to the glass-works industry equally with the manufacture of delf and china. The New Zealand glassworks are very few m number, and have been confined almost entirely hitherto to the manufacture of lamp-glasses and chimneys. Now, however, works are in course of construction at Kaiapoi for the manufacture of bottles, tumblers, medicine and soda-water bottles, besides lamp-glasses and other useful and marketable articles which should find a ready sale in the colony. Experimental trials have resulted in the successful production of articles of all the kinds enumerated. At Kaiapoi and at other places in the colony the requisite glass sands are found in abundance.
25
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
which, when subjected to various chemical treatments, ought to produce not only inferior glass, hut also the finer articles turned out by the trade in England. At Auckland there has been for some time past a small factory in existence, in which little or no sand was used, hut old glass was melted down and blown. It is hoped that at Kaiapoi, before very long, there will he proper furnaces and melting pots or tanks, with skilled men possessing full knowledge of chemical appliances, and with practical experience of “mixing” and “fluxing.” Then the experiment of manufacturing glass articles as a commercial speculation may he tried; and, when the works are in full swing, and proof has been given that the industry is adapted to the colony, the Government may he. justified in coming to its assistance by offering a bonus.
At the same time, much must not he hoped from the industry for a long time to come.- It would appear that even in Victoria the industry has not fulfilled expectations, or kept pace with the population, inasmuch as last year there were only five works, as against nine existing in 1881. Those five works gave employment to 187 men, and had £21,250 embarked in the machinery, plant, land, and buildings. Their out-put appeared to be about one-third of the imported glass and glassware. The industry would be a valuable one could it be successfully carried on in New Zealand,, and the remarks of Dr. Hector upon the subject (Parliamentary Paper H.—lsa.) are worthy of notice. He says, “ The enormous importation of glassware and glass bottles, and the consequent abundant supply of broken glass for re-smelting, has made it almost unnecessary to make the glass from the raw material; but this abounds, of all qualities. The industry is worth the attention of any persons skilled in the trade that desire a fresh outlet, and could bring with them the necessary workmen.” t
Ironworks.
All attempts to successfully establish ironworks have at present failed, and it is to he regretted that the skill and attention displayed upon such a tempting, though impracticable, industry have not been diverted into more useful channels. Bonuses have been offered, and allowed to lapse; .and, as there is only one iron furnace at work in the colony, it is not probable
26
PRIZE ESSAYS.
that the bonuses still under offer for pig-iron and wrought-iron blooms—both of which expire on the 31st December, 1886— will be taken up. Hitherto, in the Old World, the near proximity to each other of iron ore and coal seams has been regarded as essential to the success of ironworks, and as the secret of the supremacy which coal and iron countries always attain. Unfortunately, the ironsand on the west coast of the North Island and at the Manukau, which does not possess the advantage of coal as a near neighbour, has been the only field in which experimental ironworks have as yet been ventured upon. Failure has attended all of them. As pointed out in Dr. Hector’s report (Parliamentary Paper H. —lsa.), one of the most favourable localities for ironworks yet discovered is at Collingwood, in the Nelson District, where coal seams and iron ore have been found almost side by side. Here, if anywhere, the experiment of ironworks to obtain the bonuses ought to have been practically tested—especially as the yield of the coalmine is easy and abundant—yet nothing has been done.
Matches
The enormous quantity of matches imported last year—--8,304 packages, valued at £34,635- —-suggests the idea that something might be done to promote their manufacture within the colony. In England, Sweden, and Germany the industry gives employment to thousands of young and old, though—in London, at any rate —under conditions of low wages and factory life which it might not be possible or desirable to imitate in the colony. The industry is, however, worthy of consideration, especially as sulphur, the groundwork of non-poisonous matches, exists in great quantities ; and phosphorus, the groundwork of the poisonous wax matches, could be extracted in sufficient quantities from the bones which form such an extensive article of commerce in a pastoral country. The glue which forms part of matches of all kinds already comes in free of duty, as also do the chemicals used in the manufacture. If, as has been contemplated, the sale of poisonous matches be prohibited, there might, at any rate, he a fair chance of establishing the wood safety-match industry, provided the present import duty were maintained.
27'
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
Olives.
With regard to olives, there can be no doubt that, although of slow growth, the plant can be successfully cultivated in the colony. The production of olive oil is a highly important matter, and likely to be more so as woollen factories increase and the demand for the oil, which is used in that manufacture, enlarges. Dr. Hector recommends a systematic importation of olive truncheons, instead of the plant being grown here from eyes and buds. Last year the olive oil imported, free of duty, amounted to 29,077 gallons, valued at £5,467. As the plant matures it would be well to offer a bonus for the first large quantity of olive oil produced in the colony, and to impose the same import duty as exists in Victoria—6d. per gallon.
Printing Paper
In this case a Government bonus of £5OO for the first fifty tons will lapse if not claimed before the 31st December, 1886. Two previous bonuses, in 1875 and 1883, lapsed without any claimants. Last year 39,073cwt. of printing paper was imported, to the value of £67,840. No import duty is levied, and it is not probable that the Legislature—which would regard a duty in this case as a “ tax upon knowledge ” —could be induced to include it in the dutiable goods of the tariff. It is not easy to see how, even supposing every newspaper in the colony undertook to buy all their paper from a New Zealand mill for five years —a contingency not likely to happen—it would pay to establish such a mill in the colony. In order to compete in cheapness and quality with the English, Scotch, and foreign houses it is said that the buildings and plant of a printingpaper mill in New Zealand would cost £50,000. Nor could this colony depend upon customers in the Australian Colonies, where paper is imported from the Home country free of duty, and where one mill already exists, though with a limited output. Printing paper has never been produced in New Zealand except in one instance—experimentally and unsuccessfully—at Mataura. It is an industry which it were vain at present to hope to establish.
Salt.
The import of salt in 1884 amounted to 5,470 tons, valued at £14,990, an increase upon the previous year of 935 tons and
28
PRIZE ESSAYS.
162,601 respectively. There is no reason why, if salt can he produced in South Australia, where there are no salt mines, the same industry cannot he established in New Zealand. One maker, at Lake Bowler,. Yorketown, has established works the out-put from which is twenty-five tons per week, the manufacture being by the process of evaporating sea-water. There are several methods by which this process is carried out; and, without entering into details, it is sufficient to say that no great capital would be required to start the industry. Both in South Australia and Victoria there is an import duty of 20 per cent, upon salt, and it might be desirable to impose a duty upon it in New Zealand, instead of allowing it to come in free, as at present. The bulk of the salt imported comes from Great Britain, though some has been imported from the South Australian wmrks already referred to; and, considering how greatly the freight must add to the price, there is good reason for thinking that this industry could be established in New Zealand without increasing the price paid by the consumer. It is interesting to note that in Victoria last year there were seven salt-works, employing forty-two hands, with £7,40*6 invested in machinery, plant, land, and buildings. .
Silk.
The bonuses offered in 1881 and 1882 to encourage the production of silk, in cocoons or eggs, were never taken up. The importation of silk decreased last year by 33 per cent., attributable mainly to its growing disuse as an article of apparel. The silk industry is not likely to he established, even feebly, in this colony, unless by a scheme of special immigrants horn and bred to the business, and imported specially to introduce it here. It might he desirable for the Government to encourage this idea by offering facilities for acquiring land, and by importing and cultivating the proper variety of mulberry.
Starch, Maizena, and Cornflour.
The exceedingly low price at which German starch can he imported into this colony must, for a very long time to come, prevent the manufacture being taken up to any extent in New Zealand, however abundant the raw material. So long as the German article can he imported at 2fd. per pound, there is no available labour in the colony which would enable
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
29
our manufacturers to compete. It is to be feared, therefore, that the same unsuccessful result will attend the bonus now under offer as attended those offered and never taken up in 1881, 1882, and 1883. The case is different with cornflour and semolina, and no doubt could be so, if the experiment were tried, with maizena. The large and increasing quantities of these preparations of meal which are imported open up a field for colonial enterprise, and some superior specimens were to be seen in the Wellington Exhibition. Both cornflour and semolina are being produced better and cheaper than the imported article : and the unreasonable prejudice in favour of the imported article is being overcome. Government would be justified in fostering these industries by increasing the duty.
Straw Hats.
Attention has been called in the Legislature to the large quantity of straw hats imported annually. Last year 566 packages, valued at £11,365, came into the colony, notwithstanding the fact that straw, of the same nature as and of equal goodness to the Tuscan, Leghorn, or Dunstable kinds, can be easily enough produced in New Zealand. Those who have seen the working of this important, pleasing, and healthful industry in the Counties of Bedford, Buckingham, and Herts, and have seen the old people and children plaiting their straw at the cottage doors, afterwards carrying their goods to the “ plait ” market in the nearest town, cannot but wonder that such an industry has never occurred to the minds of the argricultural classes in New Zealand. Straw hat and bonnet factories, such as exist in Luton, Dunstable, and St. Albans would follow, and the manufacturer, with abundant raw material, and with sufficient female or boy labour, would soon hold his own with the imported article. The Government could aid the industry, not only by maintaining the present import duty, but by offering a bonus for the first five hundred bonnets or hats, or first thousand yards of straw plait.
Sugar.
The production of sugar in New Zealand has already been referred to as too remote a contingency, considered as a commercial speculation, to be treated practically within this essay. Five Government bonuses, offered between November, 1872, and
30
PRIZE ESSAYS.
May, 1881, lapsed; and for only one of them were there any applicants at all. Sorghum has been successfully grown as an experiment; and sugar-refining works exist at Auckland, from which an excellent article is turned out. But the colony is still a great way from sugar-producing, though the results, if any, of “ The Beetroot Sugar Act, 1884,” will be awaited with much interest. Under that Act a bonus of id. in the pound is offered on 1,000 tons ; but there is at present little reason to suppose it will be taken up. It is believed by many that beet-root sugar could not be profitably manufactured in New Zealand without the distillation of spirit from the refuse were permitted to attach to it. This the colony is not in the least degree likely to permit. Accounts of the beet-root sugar industry, even where carried on in Europe under the most favourable conditions, and with the cheapest labour, have not been encouraging of late.
Varnish.
So largely does kauri-gum enter into the manufacture of varnish that it is most desirable that an effort should be made to produce within the colony an article which can compete with that which is now so largely imported. Last year the imported varnish was valued at £12,419 —a very large sum. to send out of the colony for an article that, without much difficulty, could be made within it. In this case, since encouragement would be given to the kauri-gum industry as well as to establishing a new manufacture, the Government would be justified in increasing the import duty, and in offering a bonus for the first five thousand gallons of New Zealand varnish. In Victoria the industry appears to be established. Last year there were three paintvarnish manufactories, employing twenty-two hands, and with machinery, plant, land, and buildings valued at £16,229.
Vinegar.
The great extent to which vinegar is used by colonists leads to the reflection that the manufacture should be attached to every large brewery in New Zealand. Vinegar—or “ alegar,” as it is sometimes termed in Great Britain, when the works are attached to beer-making—has already been made in some considerable quantity by Messrs. Kempthorne, Prosser, and Co., of Dunedin; but, as 92,133 gallons were imported last year, it is evident that
31
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
the fringe of the industry has scarcely been touched. In this case also a bonus might be offered, in order to encourage brewers and .others in procuring the necessary machinery and labour. The duty is already sufficiently protectionist.
PART VI
Summary.
Briefly summed up, the following are the principal ways in which the industries of New Zealand can be promoted :
(1.) By Government bonuses being offered in certain cases, such as brushware and brooms, olive oil, vinegar, bonedust, straw hats, varnish, tartaric acid, and delf.
— ) ) ) " — ~—*-• (3.) By a revision of the Customs tariff in cases where a New Zealand product or manufacture can he promoted without injury to the consumer, and with fair prospect of its success. The import duties should he increased upon apparel, woollens, candles, olive oil, delf, and varnish. A duty should he imposed upon bonedust, fruit-pulp, and salt, which at present are free. It might he well, also, to assimilate the New Zealand tariff to the Victorian by imposing the following duties on articles which at present come in free, and which can, either at once or by degrees, he manufactured or produced in the colony : Cornsacks and flour-hags, Is. per dozen; bricks (fire), £1 per 1,000; butter, 2d. per lb.; carriage materials, 25 per cent.; casks (empty), 25 per cent.; flour, 2s. per cental; glass bottles, 3d. to 6d. per dozen in some cases, and 6d. per cubic foot in others ; glue, 2d. per lb.; honey, 2d. per lb.; potatoes, 10s. per ton; and provisions (salted), 5s. per owt.; and (preserved), 2d. ner lb.
(3.) By the Government collecting information as to fresh markets for New Zealand produce and manufactures in various narts of the world.
(4.) By the Agent-General reporting periodically upon fluctuations and depressions in particular industries at Home, and upon the prospects of their being introduced into the colony.
33
PRIZE ESSAYS.
(5.) By the agent of the colony in the United States procuring exact and definite information as to how far protection has encouraged American industries, and how long such protection ought to be or have been extended to them.
(6.) By establishing a system of technical education in the colony, and especially by the application of the fine arts to those manufactures which suffer by comparison with the imported article through want of beauty or finish.
(7.) By sending to England, America, and the Continent of Europe a certain number of artisans yearly, the New Zealand Government defraying all expenses, in order that they may acquire special knowledge of the mauu- , factories of older countries, and impart it to their fellow-colonists on their return.
(8.) By endeavouring to secure amongst Government or nominated immigrants a certain proportion of artisans and workmen connected with industries which it may be desirable to introduce or necessary to develop and improve in the colony; and, in some special cases, by directly importing skilled workmen for industries in which there is a growing demand for the finer products.
(9.) By the Government using, as far as possible and proper, New Zealand products instead of imported articles for . the public works of the colony.
(10.) By a more equitable system of freights upon the rail-way-lines.
(11.) By Government advances, upon security of real or personal property, and at a low rate of interest, to persons engaged in developing industries of colonial importance, such as fish-preserving, and especially in cases where a bonus has been offered to stimulate production.
(12.) By the community at large recognizing the importance of encouraging colonial industries, and even undergoing slight temporary sacrifices or inconveniences in order to establish a prosperous manufacturing population in their midst. By the colonists of New Zealand
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
33
wearing New-Zealand-made clothing, filling their houses with New-Zealand-made furniture, and using New Zealand food and domestic requisites. By rich and poor, old and young combining, in the true spirit of patriotism, to make it fashionable to use the products of their country, and unfashionable to go outside of New Zealand for articles which can be manufactured within it. If he is a true lover of his country who makes two. blades of grass to grow where one grew before, then that colonist is none the less a patriot who helps to give employment to two of his fellow-settlers where only one was employed already. If the colonists of New Zealand are actuated by this spirit, the stigma (which has been sometimes cast) that the imported article is cheaper and better than the New Zealand, and that the inhabitants of tbe " Britain of the South ” cannot produce the necessaries and comforts of life, and would not use them if they could produce them, would be speedily removed.
3
34
PRIZE ESSAYS.
TABLE I. Class A.— Imported goods the manufacture or production of which is already a settled industry.
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES,
35
TABLE II. ■Class B.—Imported goods the manufacture or production of which is not yet fully established, or, though possible and desirable to be established, has not yet been initiated.
TABLE III. Class C. —Imported Goods, excepting Classes A and B, and including those which are too trifling and unimportant to consider ; those which could not possibly be manufactured or produced in the colony; and those which, though possible to be manufactured or produced in the colony, are required by custom or fashion to be imported into it.
1884. £ £ rTUt..1 r- n n
Total imports.. .. .. .. .. .. 7,663,888
Class A .. .. .. 1,526,312 PIn nn T) 1 1nf r J
Class B .. .. .. 1,183,643
2,711,855
Class C .. .. .. .. .. £4,952,033
36
PRIZE ESSAYS.
TABLE lll. — continued.
Class C— continued.
1883. £ £
Total imports .. .. ,. .. . # # 7 974 93^
V,, . ’’ •• •• l|i7(t,WO Clas 3 A .. ,. .. 1,776,765
Class B .. .. ., 1,124*454
2,901,219
Class C .. .. .. .. .. £5,072,819
Note.
The author o£ this essay has to acknowledge his obligations to a large number of correspondents in various parts of the colony, who have very kindly and promptly furnished him with information upon colonial industries. For the statistics he is indebted to the Registrar-General's Statistics of the Colony of New Zealand; to the Import, Export, and Shipping Returns for 1883 and 1884 ; to other Parliamentary papers relating to the development of colonial industries; and to that invaluable publication, Hayter's Victorian Year-Book.
THE PRESENT CONDITION AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF THE INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES OF NEW ZEALAND, AND THE BEST MEANS OF FOSTERING THEIR DEVELOPMENT.
AN ESSAY; BY WILLIAM REEVE HASELDEN.
“Press onward.
INTRODUCTION.
The hope of reward sweetens labour, but tbe material reward offered for tbe successful essay will not be so valuable as the benefit that must result to all those who make themselves sufficiently acquainted with the subject in hand to enable them to write reasonably and at length upon it. I launch this essay believing that the best reward will be found in reducing into a comprehensive form the knowledge acquired in preparing for it. There is no need to detail the various sources of information which have been drawn from in order to describe the industries now existent and which may be expected to shortly exist in these wondrous islands of the Southern Seas; which, in one generation, have risen from almost primeval savagedom to power and civilization. The power of development is the strongest power a people or nation can possess, and the potentialities of New Zealand in this respect is the theme on which I write.
A RETROSPECT.
This is unavoidable. We must briefly look back over the lines traversed already in order to realize our position at the present day, and mark the directions in which the surest progress can be made. Within the memory of men who are still
65
PRIZE ESSAYS.
able to work, New Zealand produced and exported timber, oil, kauri-gum, flax, greenstone, preserved human heads, and a very small quantity of gold. This was the catalogue of exports : the value of the total was insignificant, and the permanence of the supply was considered as precarious for the whalebone and oil steadily decreased in quantity; the timber was irregularly prepared ; the true use and value of the kaurigum had not been recognized; the flax involved hand-prepara-tion, which prohibited a large quantity being obtained; while the greenstone and heads were but “ curios” of savage lands wherewith to amuse the people at Home. This was our position less than fifty years ago. Fifty years hence we may be the richest and strongest of the Australasian Colonies—truly a bold prediction ! but one believed in by many cool - headed though, perhaps, sanguine men. So rapid has been our progress as a people that individuals are sometimes tempted to ask, “Is there any use in ever climbing up the climbing wave ? ” The colony is enriched, but are we, as individuals, any better off ? Fortunately for the sake of advancing knowledge and growth, these people cannot very well help themselves in being forced forward with the mass; they have only the choice of becoming inert altogether, or of putting forth the necessary additional strain to keep pace with their fellows. Still, although the aim of our statesmen is to make the greatest happiness of the greatest number, it is possible for them to fall into the error of overforcing—of making a perfect workshop without establishing the necessary business connection to support it —of creating an insatiable hunger for employment, which grows in proportion to the supply with which it is fed. But the surest preventive of great ill-fortune befalling us in this respect lies in the multifarious nature of our industries, and the absence of any one predominating interest among the Islands of New Zealand. As is only too well known to those who were in the colony from 1840 to 1865, our progress during that period was very slow. Wool, gold, borrowed money, and a lavish war expenditure kept us in a state of activity; but farming languished, especially in the North Island, and the people who had settled under the landgrant system were in a terribly impoverished condition. There cannot be a doubt that the enormous quantities of capital produced from the gold-mines of the colony gave it the required
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
66
impetus to fairly start it upon its road to prosperity ; and tliat without the universally - marketable commodity of gold New Zealand would still be a distant colony, of interest to the geographer and ethnologist, and, perhaps, still affording an asylum to the world-weary man; but it would not have been the great and glorious country of to-day, with its illimitable vistas of the possible opening widely before it. Deeply, then, as we are indebted to the wealth of our gold-mines, they cannot be regarded as forming our true wealth for the future; they will doubtless be a factor in making up the sum of wealth; but the true and permanent wealth will not lie in them, but in the various other industries, which in the aggregate will produce a teeming population of almost every industrial pursuit known to mankind. What those pursuits and industries are and will be, and how they may be promoted and developed, it will be our object to define.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.
From mere lack of space New Zealand can never attain to greatness from pastoral or agricultural operations alone; but from her mineral wealth, her enormous extent of seaboard compared with her area, from her magnificent harbours, her climate, and moderate fertility of soil a combination has been and is forming which justifies her boast of being the Britain of the South. She is the natural birthplace and training-school of seamen, and of seamen of the very best kind, men able to take their vessels anywhere upon the seas, and gifted with a mercantile shrewdness engendered by constant communication with traders ahd cultivated by habits of self-control and command of others. In the mosquito fleet of New Zealand there are hundreds of men who are the equal of the adventurous pioneers of old, and who lack but new worlds to explore to attain to equal fame with their forerunners. Allied with our seamen are our shipwrights, who have built the mosquito fleet, and are now turning out moderately-sized steamers in every seaboard city in New Zealand, besides every description of smaller craft. Our runholders and squatters have taken up nearly every acre of Native grassed-land which will support sheep or great cattle, and must be prepared to surely, if slowly, give way to the denser population-supporting industry of agriculture, which in its turn
67
PRIZE ESSAYS.
may be pressed upon by the demand for land for more valuable purposes from a revenue-producing point of view. Our goldmines are still keeping up a good total return, while our coalfields are at last being systematically worked and appreciated, though how grievously we fail in fully utilizing them the sequel will show. On all sides factories are springing up, and from every quarter of the colony specimens are shown of skill and power of production in numberless ways, which all point to a speedy future of greatness. Still more encouraging is the trade that is being developed with other lands, and the high commercial standing of our merchants, for at the outset we must admit that our true destiny is to be factors and manufacturers for others, and that—while we might support a limited population from within, so bounteous has Nature been in the variety of her gifts to us—we can only become a populous country by becoming closely allied with other lands, and by conserving our forces to the highest possible degree. For instance, in the timber trade, at the present rate of export of baulk timber our supply will speedily become exhausted; but by working timber up in the colony and exporting it in a manufactured state it will last indefinitely, and will give a hundred times the advantage it otherwise would to us as a colony. In almost all other products the same principle applies, and it will be endeavoured to be shown that the development of our industries is best achieved by working up our natural products to the highest state of efficiency before parting with them to the merchant or consumer.
It will be convenient to divide our subjects into three main heads ; First, products ; second, the manufacture of products ; third, the manufacture of articles for winch the material must be imported ; fourth, the means of extending these three to the best advantage.
Hard-and-fast rules by which to attain these ends cannot be laid down—the subject is so many-sided, there are so many conflicting interests to consider, and so many debatable political theories involved, that it would be impossible to frame a mere code which would find even moderate acceptance. The answer to the question, “ How shall a young and healthy child he developed into a powerful and sagacious man?” would almost answer the question involved in our subject, yet who would lay down an iron rule for this with any hope of finding general
41
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
approval. The race from which the child sprang, its environments, and its personal characteristics would all have to be considered; and so it is with our colony. But, while compelled to admit that certain and specific measures cannot be prescribed, we shall be careful to avoid abstract principles or mere theoretical or political discussion.
Taking, then, the products in the order in which they are at the present time most important, in a monetary point of view, we treat first of all of
Wool.
Wool is the principal export of New Zealand, yet it seems to be less a subject for this essay than almost any other product.
This may seem a paradox, but the reason will shortly appear. In 1883 there were 13,384,075 sheep in the colony. The value of the wool exported in 1883 was £3,011,211, against £3,118,554 for 1882 —a decrease of £104,343; yet the quantity exported in 1883 exceeded that of 1882 by 2,826,7231b., the difference in value being occasioned by the fall in price. In 1883 the weight of wool exported was 68,149,4301b., against 48,848,7351b. in 1874 —an increase of 21,300,6951b. Besides these large quantities must be added 2,000,0001b. utilized per annum at the woollen manufactories ; and it is in connection with these latter industries that the wool product is of the chief importance to our subject. As a mere matter of export wool provides less employment to population, in proportion to the money returns, than almost any other industry. A few shepherds tend many thousands of sheep; a migratory class of shearers perform the annual clip. With railway communication the labour of transport is reduced to a minimum; enormous areas of land are desolate of life, save sheep life; it becomes a question of mere interest on capital. And in too many cases for the true welfare of the colony the real proprietors and beneficial owners are absentee capitalists and financial institutions. In the course of a few years the richest provinces of the colony—namely, the woolproducing ones —will be the poorest from a practical populationsupporting point of view, unless the changes mentioned before take place in proportion to the growth of the rest of the colony. Magnificent as some of the Canterbury runs and flocks un-
43
PRIZE ESSAYS.
doubtedly are, the want of space can never enable New Zealand to compete with Australia as a wool-producer. Still, much can he done to utilize her exceptionally-favourable climate and land by careful production of superior breeds, and by making up in quality what is lacking in quantity. For many years to come the supply of wool must far exceed the quantity required for home consumption, and our growers must depend upon the world’s market for their prices; and they have fortunately long since obtained the highest reputation for their wool, and especially for articles of American manufacture, and for articles requiring bright and fast colours. The great improvement effected in breed has had a most favourable effect; and the breeding of stud rams is an important factor in the flockmaster’s profits. Still, if it be true, as has already been assumed, that as population increases sheep-farming will not extend in proportion, but will rather have a tendency to lessen, and considering that the industry can only now be carried on by those who have acquired the right to the land, and have the command of the necessary capital, and that, practically, it is not an occupation of the people of New Zealand, it will be admitted that the product of wool pure and simple is not by any means the most important of the industrial resources of New Zealand. The topic involves the most important political question of the land laws ; but full discussion of the point would necessarily compel the introduction of matter foreign to this essay. Still, it cannot be altogether ignored, and in treating practically of our industries we must look to the near future, when the leases at present existing in Canterbury and Otago wdll have expired, and the momentous question to the runholder will have to be considered, whether sheep-farming will pay on privately-bought land. We must remember that sheep-farming in New Zealand commenced with colonization, and developed rapidly, because the natural grasses afforded immediate feed, and the land was then otherwise worthless; but every day the mere surface area becomes more valuable, and will require to be utilized fully in order to make the result profitable ; and with respect to sheep-farming this can only be done by the introduction of English grasses, which generally thrive admirably and repay the outlay. Land surface is becoming too valuable to allow of three or four acres to a sheep; the change must be made to three or four sheep to the
43,
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
acre. Labour must take the place of seignorlal rights over immense tracts of country. The necessity for cultivating grass of the best description will entirely alter the mode of sheepfarming ; labourers will he multiplied tenfold ; there will still be great proprietors, but they will be more than lords of sheep : they will he large employers of human labour. " The land question ” —says Mr. Stout, in the debate on the Land Bill —“ is the great question of the future.” It is too large a question to enter into here, and we must fain leave it to be settled in the stormy arena of politics; but in the meantime let our flockmasters remember that their legitimate and best market should be at home, and that, by combining with manufacturers for the production of woollen fabrics for home consumption and for export to countries where a flourishing trade may yet be established, they will render their occupation a perpetual necessity to the colony and a perpetual source of profit to themselves and to thousands of factory hands.
I venture to quote the lines of the American poet Emerson—
And what if trade sow cities
Like shells along the shore,
And thatch with towns the prairie broad
With railways ironed o’er ;
They are but sailing foam-bells
Along Thought’s causing stream,
And take their shape and sun-colour
UU DUIIXC tUICIJL aililiJJU LLIiLI SUU-UUIUUi. From him that sends the dream.
Gold.
There are two great causes tending to make the gold product of New Zealand a peculiarity in itself, and to distinguish it from all other products. The first is that, in the early history of all goldfields—at all events, all goldfields in these colonies—individuals are able to profitably engage in it, and that the cream of the field is gathered by men working almost alone, and with the rudest appliances, having no hope or desire to remain permanently in the country or occupation; and who seek to gather as much as possible in order to convey it to other lands. The second great cause is, that the spirit of speculation is more easily excited in this than in any other occupation; and the market price of scrip and the chances of selling at a profit are the objects of attention, rather than the actual returns from the mines themselves. The first relates almost exclusively toalluvial mining, the second to quartz mining.
4-1
PRIZE ESSAYS.
What has gold-mining done for New Zealand? It has ruined thousands of people, and wasted thousands of lives in profitless toil; it has promoted a spirit of restlessness and haste to get rich —so say many. Put the evil it has done first, and then the good. It has brought to our shores the flower of the working population of Australasia and California, if not of the whole world; it has produced a wealth of currency, which has assisted our producers of kind to obtain a better market ; it has peopled waste and desolate coasts, which, but for the gold, would have been judged to have been totally uninhabitable, but which will probably be the richest parts of the colony long after the gold has been practically exhausted. From Okarito to Karamea, on the west coast of the Middle Island, there is a bleak, inhospitable coast, without a decent harbour, with hardly a hundred acres in a block of cultivatable land—a tract of country which was almost untrodden by white men twenty years ago, and which, but for the amazing richness of its gold deposits, would be still a terra incognita. There are thirty thousand people settled there now —less, it is true, than formerly, hut a people who are now again increasing in numbers and importance —harbours have been made and are being made, coal is being worked out of these harbours, other minerals are being discovered; and, aided by the impetus acquired by gold, the whole district is acquiring an importance second to none in the colony. True it is that coal is taking the foremost place now, which gold formerly occupied; but "the coal would not have been developed in this generation but for the population brought by gold. Yet there are towns in New Zealand in which people speak deprecatingly of goldfields, who declare, with the innocence of ignorance, that the colony would be better without them, who lament over the supposed wickedness and disorder which reign there, and who have never heard of “ boiling down ” being a godsend to sheepowners, because “ boiling down ” has not had to be resorted to while a goldfield was within driving or carrying distance. Otago can show the same results, and Auckland is now opening up country which would possess no attractiveness were it not for the gold.
Reference has been made to the rude appliances with which the gold-miner works at first, and to his simple mode of extracting the precious metal. The different kinds of mining may be
45
.NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
classified in an order showing pretty well how they succeed each other in the history of each goldfield : 1. Simple stripping and washing with a cradle or small sluice-box, either on alluvial or beach. 2. Ground-sluicing with extended tail-race and waterpower. 3. Cement-crushing with pulverizing mill and amalgamating tables and appliances. 4. Deep alluvial workings, employing heavy outlay for pumping gear and raising. 5. River claims. Next quartz-mining, with its expensive crushing batteries, saving and amalgamating appliances, its innumerable inventions for dividing the gold from dross and grosser metals,, its high-raised hopes, and its frequent failures. It must be on a virgin field that much success can be realized by the “ hatter” —the cream is soon skimmed, and the residue must be systematically worked, without waste, to insure a profit. The bestoff “ hatters ” now are the “ fly-catchers,” who place as many tables or boxes as they can get registered sites for in the bed of a stream into which the tailings of miners working above have been poured, and these tailings are washed over and over again on the tables of the “ fly-catchers,” each washing or passing over the tables leaving some small quantity of gold in the process, and demonstrating how futile have been the attempts on the part of the previous workers to extract all the gold from them. Ground-sluicing is still carried on extensively, and will continue for many years, because only a certain quantity can be worked each year, according to the supply of water; and those who own the water command the ground : it lies idle until the man with the water-supply is ready for it.
But great work has been done by the large races constructed by Government, and by private enterprise; and ground that otherwise could not have been tested for years is being profitably worked. To the alluvial miner the best practical aid that can. be given is in the form of water and roads; if he has these given him in return for the gold duty, it is not an unjust tax; hut, unless it is expended on the particular industry it is raised from, it is as unjust as if sheep-farmers had a poll-tax levied on them, and no others were so inflicted. With the quartz-mining branch roads are the chief aid that can be given. So tardy, sometimes, has been the recognition of the value of a field that ten times the cost of a good road has been spent in packing on horses and parbuckling up river-beds before a chain of drayroad has been constructed; but next to this practical aid, which
46
PRIZE ESSAYS.
has been so much ignored, is the regular instruction in scientific modes of extracting gold from quartz, sand, tailings, and blanketings. Practically, the method is as rough as it was a score of years or more ago. In his recent tour Professor Black did some good work in establishing schools of mines ; but it has not been followed up, and requires vigorous development, and the professors themselves want practical experience to aid their theoretical knowledge.
The monetary value of the gold exported annually is startling, though it does not come up to that of wool. In 1884 246,3920z., worth £988,953 were exported. The highest yield in any one year was in 1866, just after the Hokitika rush, when gold worth £3,844,517 was exported. What this money has done for the colony can be better imagined than described; but up to March, 1885, gold worth £41,634,507 has been sent out of New Zealand. No doubt a very high percentage of the advantage such a production might have done the colony has been lost; but still, an enormous benefit has remained: as much, probably, in the stimulus and credit it has given as in the direct form of capital stored in the colony.
It is impossible to give a practical treatise on gold-mining or on any other industry, but the practical suggestion is contained in the recommendation—roads and water for miners, and instruction and invention in order to prevent loss of gold and waste of labour; rewards for the discovery of new goldfields are now offered; and bonuses for really valuable gold-saving inventions would be of practical value, as the quantity of gold lost by the present imperfect process often represents the difference between success and failure; a thorough revision of the mining laws,, which, combined with official lethargy, constantly impede the miner, harass the mining prospector, and involve all in occasional but expensive law-suits ; a regular code of mining laws framed on established decisions would be a godsend. As it is, no one knows the view a Warden will take; and, when they have found out the Warden’s idea of the law, the District Court too frequently finds the exact contrary, or that some different mode of proceeding should have been instituted. There need be no hurry to exhaust the goldfields : they are not limitless, and will not replenish when once depleted; but the anxiety should be to avoid useless labour and provide against loss of gold. W’hat the people can do to legitimately aid
47
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
developing gold-mining is to abstain from wild speculation, to look for their returns from the mine itself and not from market “ spurts to refuse steadily to take up outside “ shows to remember that none of the famous mines were ever worth the highest price their shares have reached, that only a small percentage of money invested has been spent on the mine itself, that with ordinary prudence gold-mining will pay, and that losses need be comparatively small; but that, with an army of scrip-dealers with “ quartz on the brain,” and revelling in a short “ burst ”of paper prosperity, the soberest may be misled; that small South Sea bubbles are raised over every mine that has a hundred tons of quartz to crush; and, lastly, that it is the business of speculators to blow these bubbles, and the business of intelligent persons to avoid being led away by the beauty of the prismatic vision.
For the last year the statistics show that there were 12,120 men employed in the colony as miners, at an average wage per man of £76 10s. 5d., reckoned on the gold produced for the same period. Of this number there were 3,443 Chinamen. This appears a very low rate, but it must be remembered that the gold-miners’ earnings include cost of machinery, tools, and water for sluicing, and are accordingly considerably reduced. In Great Britain the average earnings of artisans, reckoned in the same way, is only £4l 14s. During the year ending the 31st March, 1885, £34,797 was authorized by Government to be spent on works to develop the goldfields. This, with the authorities for expenditure of the two previous years, gives a total of £127,549, of which two-thirds are for roads and tracks, and onethird for water-supply, prospecting, and sludge and drainage channels. The estimated value of the plant employed in alluvial and quartz mining was £452,465.
The gold duty for 1884 is shown as under : Auckland, £3,608 15s. 3d.; Wellington, £lO Is. 7d.; Nelson, £4,254 14s. Od. ; Marlborough, £lO7 19s. 5d.; Canterbury, £2 Bs. 2d.; Westland, £7,036 os. lOd. ; Otago, £7,880 6s’. 6d. : total, £22,900 6s. 3d.
The dividends paid in 1884—85 by five mines in the Thames District was £16,882 10s.; Coromandel, one mine, £450 ; and Te Aroha, two mines, £3,500. In Reefton £35,000 was paid in dividends from five mines. In the Invincible Mine, Rees Valley, Otago, £2,915 was paid in dividends.
48
PRIZE ESSAYS.
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
49
In the Inangahua the calls made by mining companies amounted to £29,333 6s. Bd., and the dividends to £34,100. The quantity of quartz crushed was 34,349 tons, yielding 23,9970z. of gold, valued at £93,842 7s. Id. The difference in the figures as to dividends is in the Wardens’ and Secretary for Goldfields’ reports. These figures, it is supposed, will be sufficient to show the nature of the gold-mining industry as a revenue- and population-supporting one; but for more detailed returns recourse must be had to statistical tables. It will be noticed that the number of Chinese engaged in gold-mining amounts to one-fourth the number of Europeans; and this is a very serious matter, which sooner or later will breed trouble, as ground which was formerly Contemptuously left for “a Chinaman to work ” is now covetously longed for by the European. Small as the average wages of .the gold-miner appear to be, the life has many charms to a working-man; and bare wages earned in one’s own claim is infinitely preferable to those earned for an employer.
On the Ist September, 1885, a new code of regulations for apportionment of rewards for the discovery of new goldfields was recommended by the Goldfields and Mines Committee to the House of Representatives, the chief feature of which is, that for the discos ery of a new goldfield three miles from any workings there shall be paid, at the expiration of six months from the date of discovery, a reward of £lOO per one hundred miners, up to £5OO for five hundred or more miners so employed; and for the recovery of a lead in proximity to the place where a lead has been lost, and has not been worked for a period of six months, a reward equal to one-half of the above rates; and for the discovery of a payable diamond-field, lode of silver, or lode of tin, for every one hundred miners profitably employed thereon at the expiration of six-months from the date of discovery, there shall be paid a reward of £lOO, up to £5OO for five hundred or more miners so employed.
Coal.
Here is the mighty force that is to work the greatness of our land. Without it wc might struggle nobly, but we could not overcome ; with it we can do all that is required to attain our ambition, if that ambition is only set upon what is the true
4
50
PRIZE ESSAYS.
• destiny of the colony, and not upon what some may fancy it should be. The object of this essay is to show that our true destiny is to be the carriers, manufacturers, and traders of the Southern Seas ; at the same time producing so large a supply of our own requirements as to command the maximum of other’s capital at the minimum of our own. Without coal we cannot attain this, but Nature has been generous, and given us this allsufficing force. The cry is not “ Where is coal ? ” but “ Where is it not ? ” Both Islands contain large supplies of various quality. Kaitangata and Tokomairifo have sixty square miles of area, containing 768,000,000 tons ; Nightcaps, 100,000,000 tons ; Green Island, about the same, but this coal is non-bituminous, and cannot be classed as the article we really want. In the Buller and Grey coalfields are contained 240,000,000 tons of the best bituminous coal in the world, the Grey taking the palm for gas-producing and the Buller for steam purposes. At Kawakawa and Kamo there are large deposits of good steam coal. Deposits of brown coal are found throughout the colony. At Brighton, on, the West Coast, the Warden’s house was on a terrace, and the servant was accustomed to hew the coal out of her private coal-mine by the scuttleful. In Charleston about the same thing occurs to this day. In the Inangahua the leading gold-mines have also coal-mines almost alongside; but it is only when a first-class coal has been found in an available position for export that the importance of the discovery at present commaVids our attention. With all this coal at home, we imported in 1881 157,783 tons, worth £191,994.
The demand for coal for steamers is daily increasing. The Westport coal, being most in demand, brings the highest price, yet, so far, the mine has not been profitable to its owners. The causes of this are not far to seek—first, the shallowness of the bar, which prevents large ships being .employed; second, the difficulty of working the enormous incline down which the coal is lowered ; third, the .difficulties in obtaining colliers and the strikes which have taken place. All these causes can be remedied. The harbour loan of £500,000 has been authorized, and £150,000 raised in London at 5 per cent. Extensive works from the designs of Sir John Coode are commenced, increased facilities for lowering coal are being gradually acquired, and, when these two difficulties are overcome, it is to be hoped that
51
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
the last will be removed. Still, the sudden importation of a •distinct class, and the necessity of keeping them almost unmixed with the rest of the colonials, naturally creates a difficulty. The men lack the pride of colonials, they have lower ideas of life, their morals are inferior, and their prejudices are stronger than are to be found amongst the .general population. An attempt to work the mine with unskilled miners did not prove satisfactory, and the company have virtually submitted to be ruled by their imported miners, who are strong unionists, and who Concentrate all the loyalty ordinarily shown by colonists to their adopted country in protecting the sacred rights of labour against the demands of capital. In Greymouth some of the mine-owners have reaped a large reward. The coal is raised in one mine and run out from the mine level in the other, instead of being lowered as at Westport—in other words, at Greymouth it is beneath or level with, in Westport it is above, the railway. But the same difficulty exists as to shipping in Greymouth, and a loan of £350,000 was also authorized for the Greymouth Harbour, and £lOO,OOO raised on the same terms as the Westport loan, with the result that the harbour works, on which already £120,000 had been spent, are being rapidly pushed forward, with, very encouraging, prospects of ultimate success.
The East and West Coast Railway has heen shelved for the present, and has become a question more of party politics than one of political economy. No doubt it will be'eventually carried out, when coal carriage by land will vie with water transport. It is a serious question whether carriage of coals by land over such a line will pay ; but coal is but one factor in the sum, and the subject of the railway, though hardly to be avoided altogether, is one of such importance, in so many various aspects, , that it cannot be treated of fully. It is only a question of time when the railway will be made, hampered by the question on what terms it is to be made. The result cannot fail to be such an union between the East and West Coasts as to make them really one district, each supplying the other with needed staple commodities of life, and each contributing to the other’s welfare. At the present time the demand for shipping purposes alone for coal from these mines far exceeds the supply; but, when the mines are fully developed and the coal can be carried in large vessels, the markets open for it are boundless—Australia, New
53
PRIZE ESSAYS.
Caledonia, Fiji, New Guinea, East Indian Islands, India, Ceylon, Mauritius, the Cape, China, California, Peru, Bolivia, and Chili. In San.Francisco the coal from the Pennsylvanian Anthracite mines, which is only li to 2 per cent, superior to the Westport steam coal, brings as high a price as £2 Is. to £2 55., arid this affords an ample margin for profit.
The aid given by Government to develop this magnificent • means of wealth and motive-power to all other industries has been slowly given. Railways have been made, and last year the Westport and Greymouth Harbour Bills were carried; but for ten years the field has been practically neglected, nor was the colony at large awakened to a sense of appreciation of the real importance of these coal deposits. During that time the companies have been impoverished, and more than one has been forced to liquidate.
But, “ putting away the things that are behind us/’ what can he done for the future ? The question of a protective duty on coal has been raised and discussed; hut this is a poor help. If we wanted to conserve our stores, as some day we may have to, it might he right from a national point of view; hut at present it would be more loss than gain. Direct aid to the companies in the shape of remission of royalties and carriage would meet with much disfavour in the House, and could hardly he carried. Still, the enormous sums invested by the companies have greatly tended to clear the way for future success —to be achieved, perhaps, by those who at present have not a shilling invested ; and deserves, if possible, encouragement and recognition. On the other hand, the “ shepherding ” of coal-mines should be sternly suppressed, and unworked leases cancelled, to he handed over to responsible persons or corporations who could guarantee to work them. The most profitable use for the coal at home will be found to be in smelting iron, tin, and copper. New Plymouth has her ironsand. Nelson her copper, and Northern Duller her tin. If, in a small way at first, smelting furnaces were erected near the coal-mines, vessels could bring the ore and carry away metal arid coals. The earning of double freight will cheapen the cost of transit, and lay the foundation of larger enterprise. Had this essay been written last year much would have had to be said as to the neglect shown in developing or fostering the coal industry; but, iu face of what
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
53
has been done by Parliament in the session of 1884, it cannot be said that reasonable means are not being taken to do justice to this important industry. Regret, no doubt, will he felt that through delay much private capital has been lost, and that investors are discouraged ; but let the dead past bury its dead, and we look forward hopefully, believing that never again in our history will our coalfields be forgotten or neglected'.
The quantities of coal produced from the'different mines in, the colony are as follows :
The above twelve returns only include those producing over 10,000 tons per annum. There are ninety-four mines mentioned in the Statistics for 1884, giving a total output for the year of 480,831 tons, and an approximate output to the 31st December, 1884, of 3,007,198 tons.
We imported from Newcastle, New South Wales, during the year ending the 31st March, 1885,144,442 tons of coal, valued at £170,830, the total import from all parts being 148,444 tons. There seems to be every prospect of being able to reduce this import steadily down to zero. In the report of the Secretary for Mines he says, “ An inspection of the .returns shows that the increase in output is mainly from the bituminous coals of Westport and Greymouth. This is important, as it is in the development of these coalfields that New Zealand has to depend to become self-supporting in the supply of steam and smithy coals. An essential factor in this development is the improvement now begun of the bar-harbours of Westport and Greymouth. In the success already attained at Greymouth there is
54
PHIZ£ ESSAYS.
good promise of that most desirable object being obtained there, for the depth of water on the bars determines the class of vessel that can be used as colliers. At Greymouth only about three years ago vessels carrying 200 tons had difficulty in crossing the bar; whereas now vessels carrying 600 tons Can as easily be employed. The steamer ‘ Taupo ’ recently left with 900 tons. In contrast to this, the colliers from Newcastle load up to 3,000 tons or more, and' there are much greater facilities there for loading, as well. All this clearly shows the importance of improving as rapidly as possible the harbours and appliances at Greymouth and Westport, so as to enable a much larger class of vessels to be engaged in the trade, as it is the quantity carried on the same bottom, and the facility of despatch, that lessens the cost of distribution. At present a ton of coal can be delivered at Port Chalmers or Lyttelton by the class of vessels engaged in the Newcastle trade about as cheaply as from the West Coast.” . •
By bringing the facts relating to our coal prominently forward, so as to obtain the attention of those possessed of skill and capital, and by this means inducing systematic and scientific working, the coal resources of New Zealand may be assisted in development, and employment found for thousands of honest workers. The Department for Mines has taken steps to have the mineral resources of the colony adequately represented at the forthcoming Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London, and it is believed that much good will result from such an attempt to make our mineral wealth more widely known.
Meat and Cattle
The enormous advantage to the sheep-farmer of having a remunerative market for his carcase-mutton is easily comprehended ; and the rapid development of the frozen-meat trade has excited the envy and admiration of our neighbours. In 1884 252,422cwt. of New Zealand mutton, worth .£34-2,4*0, was exported to the United Kingdom, besides 1,644cwt. of beef, worth £2,605; and a total export to all countries of 27,711 lewt. of potted and preserved meats, worth £59,224. In 1882 the quantity of frozen meat exported was valued at £19,339, or 15,224cwt.; and 26,01Gcwt. of canned meat, worth £54,397.
55
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
This will give some idea of the increase since the trade first Iweame established.
To the New Zealand Land Company belongs the' credit of first instituting the export of frozen mutton. On the 18th February, 1882, they despatched the “ Dunedin,” a sailing ship of about 1,250 tons, from Port Chalmers, with a cargo of five thousand frozen sheep, weighing an average of 851b. each. The greatest care was taken* in preparing the sheep, freezing, and packing them. The ship arrived in London on the 24th May, 1882, after a voyage of ninety-eight days; the mutton was lauded in excellent condition, and sold readily at 7|d. per lb. Since then the New Zealand Shipping Company have fitted up their steamers for shipment of meat, and so have the ShawSavill line.
The New Zealand mutton commands the highest price in the market for frozen meat, and practical proof has been given of the colony’s capacity to beat all competition in the production of first-class mutton. There were a good many difficulties to be met with, partly in combatting the reluctance of well-to-do customers to openly prefer imported mutton, and partly in defeating the sharpness of the wholesale dealers in palming off New Zealand mutton as best Welsh and Southdown. ■ But the success of the trial has been so conspicuous and notorious that these difficulties are fast disappearing; but the danger has arisen of a want of reliance to be placed on every shipment, and this has been owing to the failure, or partial failure, of several cargoes. There has been carelessness or accident somewhere—it is difficult to exactly apportion the blame—and not only has heavy monetary loss been incurred, but great damage has been inflicted oh the trade generally. As a straw indicates the direction of the wind, so may the following circumstances, which have come under the writer’s own knowledge, serve to point out the fault: Sheeps’ tongues, tinned, used to be a favourite dish, and they turned out clean, sweet, and so properly cooked that they would peel without the slightest difficulty. Since the firm which supplied them so satisfactorily has been turned into a joint-stock company several tins have been obtained at different times, and they nearly all turned out unsatisfactorily. There were traces of black around the fat; there was a stale flavour about the whole, and the cooking was unequal, some being overdone, some
56
PRIZE ESSAYS.
hardly cooked at all. If any carelessness or want of cleanliness like this occurs in freezing the carcase mutton no wonder there has been failure.
It is said that the method adopted of freezing is not the best, and that the American process has greater advantages. It is described as consisting of a freezing chamber with double walls, between which is a •current of air, and also a supply of asbestos haircloths or other non-conductors. Above the chamber is a reservoir of ice, or some other cooling agent, with an adjacent pump. Cylinders are placed at suitable intervals in the chambers. From the reservoir a pipe runs to the nearest cylinder and enters it at the bottom. Another pipe runs from the top of this cylinder to the bottom of the next, and so on throughout the series. A return pipe connects, the- cylinder with the reservoir. The cooling liquid follows the course indicated. From the reservoir it is thrown by gravitation, displacing the warmer liquid therein and forcing it up and oyer into the bottom of the next cylinder, and so on to the last, whence the pump lifts the warmer liquid back into the ice-reservoir. The cylinders being air-tight, there is no contact with the cooling liquid, and the atmosphere in the freezing chamber may be kept at any temperature. Besides the utmost carefulness in having an efficient freezing-chamber, it is necessary that the sheep should he killed while cool, or “with the bloom on;” and that care should be taken in having the wrappers clean and well made, and that the original .form of the carcase should he preserved. On arrival in London a proper receiving store is requisite, in order to obtain a gradual thawing of the mutton, and the removal of any unsightly iftarks or mildewed appearance.
This trade has sprung up with wonderful .suddenness, and has been carried on with a wonderful success : it despises questions of protection or free-trade; it has hardened the price of meat within the colony, hut it has not increased it to the regular customer; it only requires a continual supply of material to he not only profitable in itself, but to he the means of prolonging the sheep-farming, industry of New 7 Zealand on a large scale to an indefinite extent. Still, the trade requires to he watched with care, as the following extract from a Loudon correspondent’s letter will show : “ The present state of the frozenmeat market is discouraging in the extreme. Never before has
57
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
there been a more striking illustration of the necessity for some system in the regulation of the supply. During the month now closing very nearly one hundred thousand carcases of frozen mutton from Australia and New Zealand have been shot into London, with the results that might be anticipated. Besides the two regular fortnightly Orient steamers, the ‘Opawa/ ‘Oamaru,’ ‘Wellington/ ‘Elderslie/ and ‘Lady Jocelyn’ have brought in immense cargoes from New 7 Zealand : and, what with the weather —which has been almost semi-tropical- in its severity—an unusual abundance of fish at an unusual lowness of price, and these ■untimely arrivals, the supply is utterly in excess of the demand. The price of mutton ,has reached 4d. per pound, and the sale even at that has been exceedingly slow. It is evident that much has yet to be done by producers and shippers, before this trade is placed on a satisfactory footing. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that New Zealand mutton is continuing to Win for itself popularity far and wide in the provinces. I have just heard a little incident that will be of interest to those who anticipate high results in the future of the trade. A prominent medical practitioner in a cathedral town has stated to my informant that he uniformly prescribes New Zealand mutton to his patients, and that he finds they can use it with safety at an earlier stage of their convalescence than any other kind of fresh meat.” Agencies will require to be established in other cities besides London, in order to insure a quick and certain sale, and it will probably be found that closer combination of interest between the ship’s owner and the shippers will be necessary to effect the needful change for the better. Instead of depending upon ordinary agents at Home, an extended agency, with powers to extend the ramifications of the business, would help in a great measure to overcome such dangers as at present menace the trade —it is simply a question of good or bad management.
So far, experiments with beef have not been successful, and the trade can he said to he now confined to mutton. This is, from a general standpoint, to he much regretted, and in some parts of New Zealand, notably in Wanganui, a regular market for surplus large stock would be a godsend : the breeding of cattle there at times is overdone, and is therefore unprofitable. There is a danger of unsuccessful attempts being made to establish meat-freezing factories where circumstances do not
58
PRIZE ESSAYS.
warrant it. When cattle have to be brought long distances by sea it is unadvisable to establish .freezing factories ; and it is not because they have been successful in some parts of the colony where local surroundings are favourable, that every city in New Zealand can maintain the industry. Wellington, Dunedin, Auckland, and Christchurch will each be the headquarters of special industries, and it is useless for them each to attempt all. Let a generous emulation exist; but let it be guided by knowledge, and a national feeling that the sum of New Zealand’s greatness is the aim to bo looked to.
Canned Meat.
In 1878 the export of canned meat reached the value of £356,280; but it gradually, decreased, until, in 1881,.it was £107,476. In 1882 it rose to £261,105. In 1884 it sank to £59,224. The falling-off is doubtless attributable to the growth in the export of frozen-meat trade; and for the future it may lie considered that only what are termed “ small goods ” wjll be canned or potted. There is no cause for regret in this; for, if the carcase sheep is exported whole with a profitable result, and the smaller edible portions canned, the total profit will be the more satisfactory. There is also a very considerable quantity of canned meat used in the colony, of which I am unable to procure the returns; but on gold- and coal-fields the consumption is very considerable, while there is always a steady demand going on generally for well-canned tongues, sausages, brawn, pressed beef, mutton, &c. Of course the less waste of any portion of the animal the more profitable the result. In Chicago, it is said, no portion of the animal is lost. The blood is dried and made into a fertilizing agent, horns and hoofs are taken by glue and comb manufacturers, the hair is used for felt, plastering, and various other purposes, the bones are broken for bonedust, and so on. In New Zealand there is not yet this perfect utilization of the whole body, but in a very little while it may reasonably be expected to develop itself. The process of canncd-meal-pre-serving is well understood in New Zealand, and some of the factories erected in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, . Oamaru, Napier, and other towns are very complete, comprising factories for the manufacture of the tins, printing labels, and soldering.
59'
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
Cattle.
.Many causes have combined to improve the cattle of this colony, and they will probably compare favourably with any large quantities of cattle in the world for breed. The number in the colony in 1881 was 698,637 (no more recent figures are available). Auckland had 158,181 ; Taranaki, 51,846; Wellington, 1 10,951 ; Hawke’s Bay, 36,213 ; Marlborough, 9,919; -Nelson, 31,620; Westland, 7,944; Canterbury, 111,155 ; Otago'and Southland, 150,150. About 40 per cent, consist of shorthorns, and the remainder of Jerseys, Devons, Ayrshires, Normans, and mixed breeds. The New Zealand Stock and Pedigree Company, Auckland, have done wonders towards improving the breed of cattle; and the annual exhibitions in Auckland bear testimony to the good effects produced by a generous emulation among breeders. Breeders from San Prandisco and elsewhere have purchased largely from Auckland, and the reputation of New Zealand as a producer of pure stock is rising surely. One great cause for this success is the immunity New Zealand has enjoyed from pleuro-pneumonia. There have been many scares, and prohibition of imported cattle has been several times proclaimed ; but the belief is now gaining ground that the disease cannot exist or spread in a climate such as that of New Zealand. On the whole, it is considered that no specific can be given for the greater development of this industry, other than the utmost vigilance and scientific care to prevent disease, the continuation of the present laudable ambition to produce prize stock, the careful choice of grasses best suited for the grazing lands, and the ordinary precaution to avoid over-production—a danger which will continue to exist with regard to large cattle until the art of freezing them for export has been perfected.
Woollen Manufactures.
This is at present probably the most important manufacture in our colony; but, as there has been comparatively no export of manufactured woollen material, it is difficult to arrive at a correct conclusion as to the actual state of the industry. In 1881 the export of woollens and blankets together only amounted to £1,610; the imports amounting to £75,151 for woollens and £25,370 for blankets, the duty charged being 15 per cent, ad valorem. In 1882 the amount for both was £155,314; but it
60
PRIZE ESSAYS.
must be remembered that the consumption in the colony of New Zealand woollens and blankets is very large, and is rapidly increasing as the superior quality of -the fabrics is becoming known, and this seems proved by the above figures. The chief woollen mills are the Mosgiel, the Roslyn, and the Kaiapoi; and in 1882 (the last return available) they consumed between them 3,000,0001b. of wool. For some time after these mills were established the returns were not considered satisfactory by the proprietors; but excellent management and determined perseverance to produce really superior work has had a most beneficial effect; and these.mills are now, it is believed, highly remunerative, though, from many inquiries made, it is found that there are many drawbacks to perfect success. In a joint letter from the above-mentioned companies to the Royal Commissioners on Colonial lildustries, dated the 16th April, 1880, they say, “Wo do not .advocate any addition to the existing rate of Customs duty, namely, 15 per cent, ad valorem upon woollen goods, as we consider this a fair enough set-off against (1) the high rate of colonial interest; (2) the high rate of colonial wages; (3) the cost of bringing out to the colony the necessary machinery, dye-stuffs, and other articles necessary in carrying on the business of a woollen factory. Secondly, we are of opinion that the direction in which your Commission might most materially assist us as woollen manufacturers is by recommending to the Legislature the relaxation of the Employment of Females Act, known as Bradshaw's Act; and we would urge this on your most favourable consideration.” They then give reasons at length for being permitted to work their mills longer than eight hours out of the twenty-four. On the whole, it seems they must have been pretty .well content then, if this is all they had to complain of. The Factories Act they refer to is still in force, and, while deeply sympathizing with all efforts to make manufactures a success, we can never be forgetful of the overwhelming evil attendant upon working women and children long hours, and the necessity of legislating in order to protect these helpless ones. Not even the, establishment of gigantic factories would compensate for the introduction of evils which the English Factories Acts were designed to suppress. In another letter Messrs. Ross and Glendinning urge that coloured yarns used in weaving should be admitted free of duty, as they are a special
61
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
line of manufacture, and would not pay to produce in the colony. But this view is opposed by the manager of the Mosgiel Company. On the whole the suggestion on which greatest stress is laid is, that the Employment of Females Act is uftjust and needless, •
It appears, then, that at present the mills in existence are having a speedy sale at profitable prices for all their manufactures ; hut no doubt their success will lead to the establishment of other mills—indeed a woollen company has been started lately at Wellington; and that, when they have produced sufficient for home requirements, they will require a larger market; and I hope to show, in the section on trade, how that market is to be obtained. At present it is a matter of great congratulation that this manufacture has been so far a success, and that the goods are so generally admitted to be superior in quality to the imported article of equal price : a strict protective duty would rather tend. to impede than assist its legitimate development, and it is not likely to be imposed. We must always hear in mind that' to double the cost of necessaries is to perpetuate high wages, to the loss of the employer, without advantage to the labourer. T,he woollen manufacturers arc now turning their attention to the making of clothing, and there cannot he a doubt as to the superiority of their make over ordinary imported goods-. Great care is taken as to style, cut, and finish; and it is hard to distinguish some of their goods from tailor-made articles. In hoys’ suits especially their goods arc infinitely superior to what can he ordinarily purchased; and, if the retail buyer could only purchaseat a fair advance on factory prices, there would not be a suit of imported goods sold. In order to overcome the difficulty with retail dealers the New- Zealand Clothing Factory have retail shops in most towns. But the woollen manufacturers could not do that well, and at the same time sell largely wholesale. Still, the retail dealers should learn, or be taught, that their real interest lies in promoting the sale of New-Zealand-made goods.
The woollen exhibits in the Exhibition command the admiration of all, and the writer’s attention was at once taken by the beahtiful softness of the material, the good taste displayed in colours and patterns, and the variety of articles manufactured by the New Zealand Clothing Factory. The same remarks apply to the Mosgiel Company’s exhibit, where coloured yarns and
62
PRIZE ESSAYS.
tropical tweeds formed the specialities. For beauty, usefulness, and interest combined I think these exhibits take the premier position in the Exhibition. I was glad to notice quite lately the declaration of 10-per-cent, dividends by some of the woollen companies, which is the best practical proof of their success. The writer travelled a long distance .to Wellington for the special purpose of obtaining the advantage of a visit to the Exhibition, in order to see the things about which this essay is written, and felt fully recompensed for his trouble in so doing.
Boots and Shoes.
■ Naturally following woollen fabrics, boots and shoes come in. In all the large cities there are boot and shoe factories, and the work turned out, though differing in excellence, is generally most satisfactory. The manufacturers have endeavoured to give a workmanlike' finish to their productions, and for neatness and elegance, especially in men’s hoots, the colonial production ■compares most favourably with the imported article. Like the 'woollen manufacture, the hoot industry does not appear now to require a higher protective duty, and is rapidly expanding, though in 1880 the manufacturers were almost unanimous in demanding a protective duty of from 20 to 40 per cent. The chief point to he observed is the quality of New Zealand leather, which sometimes appears softer and not so durable as imported leather, probablv because of haste in tanning; but for price, finish, and workmanship New-Zealand-made boots are not surpassed anywhere. Connected with this subject is the question of tanning, and it appears, from the evidence of Mr. Charles Coombes, of Dunedin, tanner, that the native bark of New Zealand is excellent for tanning, but that it is not to be procured, though in' the forests on the West Coast there are thousands of tons of fine bark for the mere labour of getting it, the bark of the birch, the hinau, and the rimu being excellent for tanning. It is worth £5 a ton at the mill. It certainly does appear strange that native bark is not used when procurable in abundance, and that the saw-mills should desregard this means of profitably utilizing their bark.
In 1881 there were thirty-one boot factories in operation, employing about thirteen hundred people, and producing 280,000 pairs of hoots and shoes. Since that time the number has
63
NEW. ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
greatly increased, and the import of boots and shoes is steadily decreasing. In 1884 we imported boots and shoes to the value of £143,840 ; in 1883 the value was £196,140 which shows satisfactory progress in home production, when taken in connection with the increase of population. The islands will, or ought to, furnish a good outlet for surplus production, when we have taken up our proper position in regard to the trade to be done with them. In the meantime New-Zealand-made boots and shoes are fighting the imported article with fair success, and there is no doubt will be victorious in the end.
The shoe leathers, bookbinders’ leathers, hat leathers, furniture leathers, and manufactured boots and shoes at the Exhibition are very good, and, so far as it is possible to judge, are equal if not superior to any imported goods. Not having an opportunity of handling or wearing the exhibits, of course appearances were perforce our only guide.
Agriculture.
From a population-supporting point of view this industry is tne most important in the colony, as the following figures will show : Persons engaged in agricultural and pastoral pursuits, 54,447 ; in mechanical pursuits, 17,602; in working and dealing in textile fabrics, 11,930; in working and dealing in food and drink, 7,063; in animal and vegetable substances, 4,873; in minerals, 22,710; in undefined labour, 17,833 : total, 136,446.
aifl, A/*.,* AW, AiA UUWAUUAU .U.WW.AA, A.,WA.~. aww,*aw. The foregoing figures combine the pastoral and agricultural occupations, and I can get no separate returns. Still, I think it is sufficient for our purpose. Grain is the chief article of export that gives statistical importance to agriculture. In 1867 we imported wheat and flour to the value of £145,959 more than we exported; and in 1883, fifteen years afterwards, the exports exceeded the imports by £839,297. In 1884 w r e exported £436,728, and imported only £l,lOO. A duty of 9d. per 1001b. has been imposed since 1879. Nearly the whole of this quantity comes from Canterbury and Otago (see Table). Of oats, we exported in 1884 £267,286 worth, the supply coming from the same provinces ; and the import was only £74.
Aivyui t i W lUIM i;nvy i illj/vi v fI *V»J vymj uwi x« These returns are truly magnificent, and would lead one naturally to believe that agriculture, especially grain-growing, is the truest and best industry of the colony. But, while it is a
6-1.
PEIZE ESSAYS.
matter for congratulation that the colony should be producing the whole of its breadstuffs, and exporting so largely of its surplus production, it is hardly true of the colony generally that agriculture is a profitable or favourite occupation for the nativeborn youths and men. In Canterbury and Otago soil, climate, and accessibility assist the grain-grower, railways carry his grain, and the land is easily brought under crop. Elsewhere, but especially in the North Island, the complaint is general that farming does not pay. The want'of means of transit to market prevents the small farmer from making the same profit from his labour that the other toilers do, and there is not the natural facilities for farming on a large scale that there is in the South Island. It is a fact that in the North the native-born youths are averse to farming, and prefer to get near the towns if possible. Nor are they at all to be blamed for this, but rather praised; for, brought up on a farm, they grow up in ignorance, which they bitterly feel when brought into contact with those from the towns. Their eyes are then opened to the easier and more moneycommanding life that others lead : with the result that they centre towards towns at the first opportunity. Moreover many parents encourage this feeling, and evince great repugnance to bringing up their sons to the hard life they have themselves endured. It is difficult to conceive a life more miserable to an intelligent youth than the drudgery of an unprofitable farm.
Unfortunately many of the farms in the northern portion of the Auckland Province must he classed as unprofitable, and are only occupied because the owners do not know where else to go to and make a fresh start. After an absence of nearly twenty years I rode the other day from Mahurangi to Mangawai, and the district had actually retrograded from the condition it was in after the first two years of its settlement. • There were no roads passable for drays in wet weather, places where former settlers had tried to make homesteads were deserted, the number of settlers had actually decreased, and, were it not for the money circulated by the gum-diggers, and some timber export, the whole country would have been desolate. Near all the towns there are splendid evidences of good farming, carried on in an apparently successful manner, and where dairy produce of all kinds finds a ready sale at remunerative prices. The failures so far have chiefly been where the attempt has been made to
05
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
settle iu “ the bush,” where, from distance and want of means of transit, what was grown could not be sold at prices that would pay. The great fact, however, remains that, except perhaps iu Canterbury and Otago, the population will not prefer husbandry while they can get anything better; and that “better” will be afforded by the development of manufactures, trades, and trading. There will always be a sufficiency of farmers; but, if New Zealand fulfils her destiny, the proportion of agriculturists will be less than it is at present.
Outside the large grain-growers the most successful farmers are the makers of dairy produce ; and evidence is not wanting that systematic improvement in this department is being made. The dairy factories of New Zealand are increasing in number, and the meat-preserving companies are offering inducements to dairy farmers to send their produce to them. Ashburton and other New Zealand cheese is worth £65 a ton in London, while it has fetched as high as £3 11s. 6d. per cwt. At Edendale, Ashburton, Wanganui, Greytown, Carterton, Woodville, and other places cheese factories are in full operation. Butter factories are also springing up, with, so far, satisfactory results. The great aim should be to produce a really first-class article, and allow no temptation of present gain to encourage the export of second-rate goods. The skill and attention this branch of farming is receiving is shown by a perusal of the weekly provincial papers, in which a large space is devoted to the subject, and valuable hints and suggestions constantly thrown out.
Of course successful dairy-farming is, like other branches, dependent upon means of access to markets or agencies, and it is by opening up the country by railroads and other means of cheap transit that this industry can he encouraged and developed. “ Had I not been a helpless cripple,” says Sir Julius Yogel, “ I would have preached the doctrine of railways from one end of the Island to the other.” But railways, politics, and theories are inseparable, and the stern condition against importing such subjects into this essay deters me from following the subject further. Fortunately, however, the struggle is not whether railways shall be made, but merely how they shall be made and financed. One thing seems to be certain, that farming lives where railways or even good roads are, and that it languishes and is avoided where they are not. The proportion of farmers
5
66
PRIZE ESSAYS.
in New Zealand paying rent for their farms is not large; but the number who are paying rent in the shape of interest on mortgages is comparatively enormous, and the high price of money tells upon the farmer with great severity. When the New Zealand Trust and Loan Company can report that they have £1,473,376 lent on freehold land in New Zealand, and can pay a dividend of 20 per cent, per annum to their shareholders, most of whom reside outside the colony, some idea can he formed of the drain that is going on from the colony. To pay 10 per cent, for money is a life-killing tax to the farmer; for, although the nominal rate of interest may he 2 or 3 per cent, lower, charges for obtaining loans, renewals, transfers, and releases bring up the average rate to quite 10 per cent. Yet, in these days of high-class farming, it is seldom the smaller farmer can do without borrowed money; and even with its aid they can hardly cope with the large farmers, who, from the extent of their acreage, can purchase labour-saving machinery extensively. A now famous author says, “ One invention after another has already given the large farmer a crushing advantage over the small farmer, and invention is still going on. And it is not merely in the making of his crops, hut in their transportation and marketing, and in the purchasing of his supplies, that the large producer in agriculture gains an advantage over the small one. To talk as some do about the “ bonanza ” farms breaking up into small homesteads is as foolish as to talk of the great shoe factory giving way again to journeyman shoemakers with their lapstoncs and awls.” The result of this will he seen when the struggles of the small farmer cease to he able to provide the interest on his mortgages, or his direct rents, as well as necessary sustenance. Then will the capitalist call in his mortgages, with the result of merging many small farms in one large holding; and the agriculturists will only be composed of the two classes the capitalist farmer and the farm-labourer. On the one hand we have our statesmen striving to protect the smaller men from the maw of the land swallower; on the other, the constant cry that produce can he obtained more cheaply by concentration of small holdings into one than by allowing the small holdings to continue. This is the point where the interests of capital and labour diverge: when capital cries out for more hands, hut strives at the same time to reduce the rate of pay, and looks
67
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
only to the percentage obtainable from capital invested, where it denies to labour any profit but only actual earning. The small farmer may hope for something more than daily wage, though too often this hope is never realized. The large farmer says, “ My profits shall increase year by year, though wages, or the recompense of labour, shall not increase—brains and money must triumph in the end over unskilled labour.” This is the problem for which no final solution can be expected, now' or at any other time. The solution lies in the education of our masses in habits of sobriety, in obtaining the political power, and in wdsely wielding that power w'hen obtained. The struggle must ever go on—whichever side sleeps will be defeated—but the victory will fall to the bravest, most enduring, and liberal-minded. Not in strikes or violence, not in desperation or sullenness, will the workingclasses find their best weapons, but in endeavouring to understand where their best interests lie, and by electing representatives who will maintain those interests. If the desire of our rulers is to promote and secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number, every endeavour will be used to check the tendency to create but two classes—the rich and the poor. No specific can be given, but by constant vigilance and a liberal, w'hole-hearted policy the small farmer can be kept alive for many years.
If the system of only making roads where the present traffic will pay for them is persevered with, farming in many districts where it is at present carried on will languish and fade away. I give one instance. The Karamea Special Settlement was founded about twelve years ago by Government at a very large expense : men were landed there, supported, and encouraged for years; many of them were quite inexperienced in the work, and many left the district before very long. The residuum have profited by hard experience, and there are at present in the district a number of farmers, who, if they had any opportunity of selling their stuff, would be comparatively prosperous; yet, as a fact, they are absolutely without a road in or out of their settlement, and cannot drive a beast overland to any market. A steamer calls at irregular periods about once a month, and that is all the communication they have with the outer world. There are many settlements in the North Island in just the same condition. Where wc have railroads, open land, and
68
PRIZE ESSAYS.
easy shipping, there the small farmers will he squeezed out by the capitalist farmer; where the small farmers would not be so squeezed out, they have to contend with the absence of roads of any reasonable kind. The small farmer is not much represented in Parliament, nor are his brains, as a rule,' active enough to make sufficient stir to cause his grievance to be removed; but when he is annihilated his loss will be felt to the whole community. The establishment of a State Bank which would make prudent advances to the farmer at a low rate of interest, without heavy legal charges, would do much ; but there are enormous difficulties in the way of doing this, and it is feared that at present there is not much chance of its being done. Agricultural colleges may serve to induce native-born youths to leam the business of farming; but roads and bridges are the greatest necessities in order that the waste places may be made fertile and peopled, and the race of farmers an increasing and prosperous one, for many years. But in order to provide cheap labour immigration is another necessity for the farming industry. The native-born are not averse to shepherding, shearing, and stock-riding; but they have too much faith’ in themselves to become agricultural labourers. The lot of an agricultural labourer is superior in the colony to what it is at Home; but the sons of the colonial labourer strive to take a still more onward step and rise superior to their parents’ position. Whether immigration on a wholesale scale is a good thing for the colony is a many-sided question. For my own part I would prefer that the population of New Zealand should be produced by itself, with such a leaven as unassisted immigration will give; and the wholesale importation of the inferior portion of the population of all countries will not tend to raise us to a high standard as a people. The class of immigrants required for our agricultural interests is the small capitalist farmer, or rather the practical farmer having a moderate amount of capital at command. These are at present being attracted to Manitoba and elsewhere, and very few are coming to New Zealand. These are the men who will invigorate our farming interests both by example and by infusing well employed capital into the colouy. The introduction of particular clans to settle in one locality is not successful or desirable, for they remain too long as strangers to the rest of the population, and intensify their prejudices and predilections.
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
GS>
Table of Wheat, Oats, and Barley, raised in each Provincial District for the Year 1884-85.
Timber Trade and Kauri Gum,
la this trade Auckland has naturally the lead. The magnificent kauri forests, which belong to her alone, give her this supremacy. Dr. Hector states that the forests of New Zealand cover an area of twenty million acres. But the waste that is going on has aroused the anxiety of our statesmen, notwithstanding this enormous supply. The annual report of the Auckland Timber Company for 1885 shows upon how large a scale their operations are conducted : their assets are reckoned at .£232,683 2s. Bd. In the Chairman’s report he says, “ Our stock of round and squared timber now amounts, in round numbers, to twentyeight millions on tidal waters and creeks.” The annual output of kauri timber from Auckland is about 110,000,000 ft., and .the highest estimate of the amount of timber in the kauri forests is 23,000,000,000 ft. Bush fires destroy great quantities of standing timber annually, though the loss is not actually so great as might be supposed, as the larger trees are not consumed by the fire sweeping through the forest, and a largesized tree that has been circled and killed by fire affords the most durable wood; but smaller and growing trees are destroyed, and the future generation will suffer for the waste and carelessness of the present. From Kaipara—the port of the largest kauri-timber district in Auckland—comes this complaint and suggestion : “ The kauri timber is disappearing very fast, as it is not only being sawn up in the district, but very large quantities of baulk timber are now being sent away ; ships are loading here for Melbourne and Sydney with baulk timber. Large quantities of kauri rickers are now' being cut down and
70
PRIZE ESSAYS.
sent to Auckland for spars. In our opinion this should not be allowed ; no timber should be cut under a certain measurement. Bush fires are also doing great damage to the forests here, and severe penalties should be enforced on all persons setting fire to the bush by carelessness or otherwise. As, however, in spite of all precautions, the country is sure to be gradually disforested, new plantations should continually be made, and care taken that only suitable trees be planted. Many millions of feet of kauri timber have been wasted in opening' up the tidal bushes on the Wairoa by using it for making tramways, when a light iron rail laid down on the kahikatea would have done as "■d 1 ■ Me think an export duty should at once be placed on all baulk timber leaving the country.” With regard to kauri gum, the writers of the above say, “ If varnish could be manufactured in New Zealand a considerable amount of money would be saved. We would suggest offering a bonus for the manufacture of varnish.”
Besides kauri, the to turn, kahikatea, rimu, and silver pine are most valuable for general purposes. Rata makes admirable knees for ship-building, and is too often used for firewood. There are, altogether, about sixty-six different kinds of useful woods, and about half these are reckoned as adapted for general purposes. The mottled kauri is the most valuable of all, and is getting scarcer every day. e imported in 1884 about twentytwo thousand pounds’ worth of timber, chiefly in logs, from New South Wales, and Tasmanian posts, palings, and rails. In 1882 the return gives £62,881 as the value imported—a very considerable and satisfactory falling off. Nearly all the imported timber is for the purpose of being worked up into valuable articles. There is a duty of 2s. per 100 ft. on undressed and 4s. per 100 ft. on dressed timber, which is prohibitive except for exceptionally valuable kinds. Much of the timber sawn is used in the colony; but our export for 1885 was £140,000. The subject of bark for tanning has been referred to in the section on leather manufactures, and is well worthy of serious consideration. To Sir Julius Yogel belongs the credit for having attempted seriously to rouse the colony to the necessity of conserving our forests ; but, so far, the effort has not had much practical success, and the matter is being discussed in the present session of Parliament, sitting while this essay is being
71
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
written. The Crown forests of the colony are estimated at ten million acres, and over this estate Government can exercise its control at least, and set a good example. By planting on Government reserves in the neighbourhood of railways with various kinds of exotic trees, the products of which enter into the economy of many industries already established, or capable of being profitably pursued, in this country, much good may be done. The blue-gum, wattle, hickory, ash, oak, cork, and elm would do well, if proper attention is paid to them at first. It is said that olives and mulberries might be planted in situations where they can be easily looked after, by way of experiment with a view to the introduction of the olive and silk industries by private enterprise in the future [vide report of Royal Commission) .
There is ap immense quantity of woodware manufactured in the colony. The Union Sash and Door Company, as their name implies, produce great quantities of sashes and doors of various kinds, besides mantelpieces and general house-building furniture. The Dunedin Iron and Woodware Company produce more miscellaneous goods with success. Besides these there are woodware steam-mills in every city and town, where timber is turned out in all states, from the rough weatherboard and scantling to the polished table and chiffonier. Furniture-mak-ing in the colony has reached a great state of perfection, and the high duty of 17 per cent, ad valorem has given it as much protection as can safely be afforded without declaring for prohibitive duties. The industry is furnishing much employment for lads and youths, many of whom are showing great skill in the work. There is, of course, a desire amongst many well-to-do people to have English furniture, and it is but fair that they should pay for the luxury of indulging their tastes in this respect. This industry will be promoted, along with many others, by finding an outside market, and so proving to New Zealanders that their wares are appreciated by others, and that they need not be at all ashamed of using them themselves. Where that market is I hope to be able to show by-and-by.
Kauri Gum. —ln 1883 «'C exported 6,518 tons of this article, worth £336,605. I am afraid those engaged in the occupation of digging the gum have acquired a very poor reputation, it being generally supposed that only the outcasts from
72
PRIZE ESSAYS.
society engage in it. There arc at the present time over two thousand persons—white and Maori—engaged in gum-diggin<>-. Why it should be written of gum-diggers, “It is generally supposed that a European who resorts to gum-digging is unfitted for any other occupation,” Ido not know ; nor why " All the finer feelings of his nature become blunted, and he falls to a lower depth than the savages with whom he makes his home.” Having been at one time of my life engaged in buying gum, I know something about the work, and know that, with fair luck, good wages can be made in an independent kind of life, with no greater hardship than most gold-miners endure cheerfully. Yet the gold-miner is respected, the gum-digger despised. Nearly fifty thousand tons have been exported since 1871, and over two-thirds goes to the United States. It comes back to the colony in the shape of varnish. When we have- mastered the secret of its conversion from gum into varnish the two freights, and intermediate profits, will be saved to the colony. The supply of gum is, however, being sensibly diminished, and with the diminution of the kauri forests will sink in importance.
Hemp, Rope, Twine
The indigenous plant, Phormium tenax, naturally attracted attention to these manufactures. The beautiful flax mats prepared by the Natives were exhibited in London amongst the first trophies of the explorers of New Zealand. Dressed flax, prepared by the Natives, was an article of export for many years; but it has not kept up in quantity, partly because the Natives find other more remunerative employment. Large sums of money have been spent by Europeans in providing flaxdressing machinery, but, as a rule, loss has been the result. In 1870 the value of dressed flax exported was .€132,578, and in 1873 it rose to the maximum of €143,799. In 1882 it sank to €41,955, and in 1884 to €BOO. There arc, however, forty hemp mills and eighteen rope and twine works in the colony, employing upwards of four hundred hands ; but the majority of the raw material used is Russian hemp and Manila. A considerable quantity of phormium cordage is made and used in the colony. In 1873 it was €4,001, but since 1876 it has not reached €l,OOO a year. The difference in the price of labour between New Zealand and, say, Manila is sufficient to account
73
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
for the industry not taking very firm hold, and indeed it can scarcely be expected or hoped that the colony will compete with countries where labour can be had for threepence a day or even less. The exhibits of the Auckland Fibre Company and of Hale and Throp appeared to the writer to be all that could be wished for.
Tobacco.
There has been so much written and said about growing tobacco in the colony that the subject naturally finds a place in this essay, although at present it cannot be said that the attempt to grow and manufacture tobacco has met with very signal success. Yet it seems to have been sufficiently demonstrated that tobacco of the finest quality can be grown in Auckland, and that there is no reason why the whole of the tobacco used in the colony should not be grown in it, unless the revenue steps in and finds, as it did in the distillation of spirits, that the manufacture within the colony entails too great a loss to the ■ revenue. At the present moment the duty on imported tobacco ranks next to that on spirits. The intrinsic worth of the article may be gathered from the fact that a single acre will produce between 1,5001b. and I,Boolb. weight. The duty at present is 3s. 6d. per pound, and in 1884 the gross amount of duty received was £200,884, which wou Id be about 921,0001b. Of cigars, 69,2951b. were imported, at a duty of 65., giving a revenue of £21,985, and of cigarettes, 23,3111b., duty 65., giving £6,310 16s. Bd. New Zealand grew, in 1884, 4,7761b. of tobacco, and manufactured 1,4511b. of cigars and 1,3481b. of cigarettes, the duty on home-grown tobacco being Is. a pound. The Royal Commission of 1880 reported that the Tobacco Act of 1879 had destroyed the tobacco-growing industry, and that that was the intention of the framers of the Act, and the tendency of the policy recommended by the Customs Department and adopted by the Government. The Commissioners say no compromise is possible, and that, if the Customs revenue is held to be of paramount importance, as it unquestionably is at present, then the growth of tobacco ought to be prohibited, as it practically is by the Act of 18/9. If this is still the feeling, there is little use in printing long papers on the growth and cultivation of tobacco. Better far to accept the inevitable, and admit that, for fiscal purposes alone, we must exclude tobacco and distillation from
74
PRIZE ESSAYS.
the list of our home industries. It will be observed that a few hundred acres would grow all the tobacco at present needed in the colony; that the value of the tobacco is low, were it not for the duty; and that, until we are in a position to export tobacco to new countries, the advantages of growing our own supply may be easily outweighed by the inconveniences arising to the fiscal necessities. It certainly is hard upon the smoker, to whom, perchance, tobacco is the one luxury, that he should have to' pay so much for his innocent enjoyment ; but he gets off more lightly than the spirit-drinker, who has to pay 14s. a gallon, or 2s. 4d. a bottle, on every drop of liquor he consumes. The value in sterling of total imports of tobacco is worthy of notice and comparison with the duty received, omitting shillings and pence :
Value. Duty.
£ £
Tobacco unmanufactured .. .. 1,605 1> 5 10
manutactured
Sis ars ., 23,119 .. 21; 985
cigarettes 7, 910 .. 6 310
£97,880 £231,119
Comparing this with the duty on spirits, brandy to the value of £77,104 produced in duty £103,774. The total value of spirits was £215,411 duty, £380,326. This is without spirits of wine. The value of the tea imported was £180,301, and the duty (4d.), £73,196. But, although there may be such strong reasons against encouraging the growth of tobacco, these do not weigh, equally against the manufacture of the imported leaf; and there are strong hopes of this branch developing into one outlet, at least, for colonial labour, and perhaps favourably affecting the exchanges.
Sugar,
Let us begin by stating the figures represented in this article if the statistics for 1884. We imported that year raw sugar worth ,£189,931, paying a duty of £19,535, and refined sugar worth £504,667, paying a duty of £87,953. Here are figures that well cause those who are in search of payable home industries to ask if we cannot produce our own sugar. Mr. Vincent Pyke, M.H.R., says beet sugar spoiled his tea, his whiskey, his pudding, and everything else he used it for; yet there are many facts to make us believe that beet sugar can be profitably produced in the colony. I saw in a recent newspaper
75
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
that specimen beet roots grown at Waverley, and forwarded to Dr. Hector for analysis, only yielded from G'4 to 3'2 per cent, of sugar. But in other trials 15 and 20 per cent, has been obtained. In France and Belgium some years ago only 9to 10 per cent, was obtained; but careful cultivation and selection of seed has raised this average to 15 to 18 per cent. That the climate and soil of New Zealand is suitable for growing beet there seems ample proof. The main question is one of labour, which still remains high; and, until the questionable advantage of cheap labour is obtainable in the colony, many people doubt whether the industry would pay. It has already been explained that the native-born population of the colony do not take kindly to agriculture, and root crops would be a department in agriculture especially distasteful. Still, looking forward to a rapidly-increasing population, this industry may well employ many men, boys, and girls in a useful, honourable, and profitable occupation ; and certainly an occupation which, if not so brainstimulating as others, is infinitely more healthy than factory work. The Beet-Root Sugar Act of 1884 provides that there shall be a difference in favour of the locally-produced article of id. per lb. in the tariff on sugar, and offers a bonus of id. per lb. on the first thousand tons of sugar from beet-root produced in the colony. A good deal of information has been gathered on the subject by Sir Julius Vogel, and is embalmed in the State papers and in Hansard. The industry may not rise to prominence for some time, but eventually there is little doubt that it will be an important one in the colony.
Fisherie
Scarcely any country is better supplied by Nature with fish than New Zealand, yet it can hardly be said that the fishery industry is established on a satisfactory basis. There is a very large importation of preserved fish into the colony both from America and England. In 1884 wc imported dried, pickled, and salted fish to the value of .£8,613, and potted and preserved fish to the value of £42,473. The duty on the former is 2s. per cwt., and on the latter. Id. per lb. Our export of New Zealand fish in 1884 was insignificant, reaching only a total of £299. Yet frozen fish have been successfully carried to London, and great hopes were raised that a market might be
76
PRIZE ESSAYS.
found there. If it he true that all the weight and influence which was brought to hear in establishing the Fisheries Exhibition in London, and in endeavouring to break down the monopoly of the London Fishmongers, extending over the whole kingdom, was unsuccessful in effecting its object, then I fear we cannot hope much from a fish trade with the United Kingdom. The acclimatization of salmon has been many times attempted, with partial success ; but the result so far should not he discouraging. The Secretary of the Auckland Acclimatization Society says. From what is known of the habits of the Californian salmon it is certain that the young fish make their way down to the sea shortly after hatching, and remain in the sea or estuaries for several years; sometimes, however, making short runs up the rivers. They do not appear to be fit for reproduction until about four years old, when they proceed up the rivers to deposit their ova. Prom this it is obvious that for four years after the hatching of the ova we could hardly expect to see much of the fish. Again, although the fish hatched from seventy or a hundred thousand ova might amount to a good round number, yet, when we consider the enemies which, like the fry of all fish, they would have to contend with, first in the fresh water streams and later when they reached the sea, there can be no doubt that the number spared to reach maturity would be small, perhaps so small that they might proceed up a large river without being observed. It must also be remembered that any number of young fry might go down the river to the sea without attracting much attention, as they would be confounded with the whitebait and other small fish so common in our rivers. But when the adult fish ascend the rivers then we may expect to hear something of the salmon. Taking the breeding age of the Californian salmon at four years, this would not be until eight years after the importation of the ova. It is well to mention that the facts relating to the importation of the British salmon into Tasmania strongly corroborate this view. Salmon ova were brough from Britain, hatched in a suitable establishment on the Derwent River, and turned out into the stream. For years nothing was heard of the fish, and most people believed the introduction a complete failure. After the lapse of ten years a few grilse were caught in the lower part of the river. The next year they were abundant, and have been
77
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
steadily increasing ever since. Evidently the mature fish from the original ova had passed up and down the river unnoticed, and it was not until their progeny became mature that the fish were observed.” There are, altogether, 192 different kinds of fishes found in New Zealand w'aters, some of them very rare and only described from single specimens. Of 140 species enumerated by Dr. Hector, sixty-seven are peculiar to New r Zealand, seventy-five are common to the coast of Australia, ten are found in New Zealand and other places but not in the Australian seas.
The following is a list of the various kinds of fish found in the New' Zealand market, taken, with some remarks, from the able work of the American Consul, Mr. Griffin, and from Dr. Hector’s report : Hapuku, kahawai, red schnapper, schnapper, tarakihi, trumpeter, moki, frost-fish, barracouta, horse mackarel, trevally, kingfish, John-dory, boarfish, warchou, mackarel, rock cod, gurnet, mullet, sea mullet, wrassy (spotty), butterfish, haddock, red cod, whiting, ling, turbot, brill, flounder, sole, garfish, grayling, smelt, hokopu, minnow, sand-eel, anchovy, pilchard or sardine, sprat, eel (tuna), black-eel, conger-eel, silver-eel, leather jacket, smooth-hound, stingaree, skate.
Of these fish, the hapuku is always a great favourite. It bears a striking resemblance to the celebrated Murray cod, of the rivers of Australia. The hapuku, however, never enters fresh water, hut is a deep-sea fish, although often captured near the coast. Its average weight is about 451b. Specimens have been caught weighing 1301b. The head and shoulders are described as being very delicious. The kahawai, often called the native salmon, afford great sport to anglers. They sometimes weigh between 71b. and 81b.; but the meat is dry in the large size. In the early stage of their growth they are spotted like the trout. The schnapper is another very valuable fish. It frequents shallow water, and is caught with hook and line. Its average weight is from 41b. to 51b., in some parts running to 101b. and 151b. in weight. It is remarkable for its abrupt profile, and the brilliant metallic lustre of its scales. The trumpeter is the best flavoured of all the New Zealand fish, and is very abundant. It is also found in Tasmania and Victoria. The frost-fish is often met with in the market. It is not obtained by fishing, but is found, after cold frosty
78
PRIZE ESSAYS.
nights, cast up on the shore by the long roll of the oceanswell. The barracouta is so called from its resemblance to the barracouta-pike of the tropical parts of the Atlantic. There are three or four kinds of flat-fish, all of which are of fine flavour. The patiki, one of these, is very common. The Maoris spear them in clear shallow water. The flesh is tender and delicious. There are some excellent freshwater fish, such as the upokororo (the Native name of the grayling), the kokopu, the family of Galaxidse, Mangawai smelt, and others. Dr. Hector, in his report on the food-fishes of New Zealand, says of the kanae (Mugilperusii) , grey mullet: “This mullet excels all other New Zealand fishes in richness, and is now dried and smoked in large quantities for sale in Auckland, where several extensive establishments also exist for tinning this fish. In this form it is highly esteemed, rivalling the American tinned salmon in the market.”
The Bill now before the House provides bonuses, namely, for the first 200 tons weight of colonial cured and canned fish, Id. per pound, and in respect of every extra ton over the first 200 tons, a bonus of id. per pound. The Bill also provides for setting apart laud on the coast-line as sites for fishing-vallages; and for conferring certain privileges upon persons entering into the fishing industry. This Act passed, and is now law.
An excellent letter on the subject has just appeared in the New Zealand Mail, from the pen of Mr. A. J. Rutherford, in which he gives returns of the value of the United States fisheries, as under; Oyster fishery, §13,439,000; cod fishery, §4,000,000; Pacific salmon fishery, §3,300,000 ; whale fishery, §2,030,000 ; Menhaden fishery, §2,117,000; Alaska, for seal, §1,541,000; mackarel, §1,501,000.
Mr. J. McKenzie, who was commissioned by a Scotch firm of merchants, states “ that he found plenty of firm, delicate fish in the Firth of the Thames, near Auckland; northwards he found schnapper, mullet, kahawai, and bream of fine quality. Kaipara Harbour was swarming with the largest and finest mullet in the world. On the coast-line bctw'een Kaipara Heads and New Plymouth large shoals of schnapper, mullet, and kahawai are to be found during some portions of the year. Off Kapiti and Main, near Wellington, groper, moki, rock-cod, crayfish, kelp-fish, and butter-fish were found. At Picton Sounds fish
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
79
were in teeming myriads. The most abundant fish is the Picton herring, which is not a true herring, neither is it a true pilchard ; but it is a good fish, and adapted for tinning and curing; and, as it is found here in immense quantities, it could be so cheaply procured that the export trade in this article alone should rival in a few years the herring trade from the north of Scotland. Of course, this fish, as well as the herring tribe, is migratory ; but fishermen would soon find out its habits, and follow it round from station to station, as is done with the Scotch herring. Groper, mold, ling, and crayfish were also found near to Cape Farewell on the west side. From Martin’s Bay to Oamaru fish was in such numerous shoals, in-shore and off-shore, that millions of tons of fish could be caught yearly. It is simply a question of proper appliances, and finding out the best and quickest modes of catching the fish ; for the fish are there in countless millions, and natural harbours abound from Milford Sound to Oamaru. The Sound sw r arms with blue cod, moki, trumpeter, rock-cod, and crayfish; and off-shore are great quantities of ling and groper. Ruapukc Isles, off Bluff Harbour, in Foveaux Strait, swarms with moki and trumpeter. Chasland’s Mistake, on the mainland, commands splendid moki fishing-grounds, and also blue-cod, rock-cod, and trumpeter fishing. And here barracouta were met with all the way northwards to off Oamaru; but off Cape Saunders and Otago Heads seems to be a general gatheringground. The kinds of fishes that can be obtained in large quantities cheaply and fit for export trade tinned, wet- and drysalted, and smoke-dried are—Picton herring, in Cook Strait; groper, ling, barracouta, crayfish, cockles, flounders, trevally, silver-fish, mullet, kelp-fish, gurnet, and about twenty other varieties, including a kind of mackarel, abound on the coast of both Islands; and tinning and curing factories would use all in their season, if ever established. But the other kiuds, along with sohnapper and large mullet of the North Island, are kinds to make the large trade with; and no other country in the world has such a variety, and distributed round its coasts so well.”
It is proposed to establish fishing stations at Pelorus Sound, Queen Charlotte Sound, and Port Underwood ; and certainly no lack of consideration of the important subject of fisheries can be attributed to the Government of the colony. Whether the onsideration has taken a practical form is another matter.
80
PRIZE ESSAYS,
Four species of oysters inhabit the coasts of New Zealand. Of these, the most important is the common rock-oyster, confined almost to the northern half of the North Island. These are largely sent to the southern ports of the colony ; and the amount consumed in the district of Auckland would probably not equal that shipped to the southern districts. There have been several Acts passed for the conservation of the oyster fisheries, from 1866 to 1874; but, while all deplore the reckless way the oystergrounds are depleted, no systematic endeavour has yet been successfully made to regulate the taking of oysters.
Whaling was, in the early days, an important industry to the colony ; but it has so decreased and given way to other branches and is so unlikely to be revived to any extent, that it does not call for much notice. In 1871 the highest return for whalebone and oil seems to have been reached, when £21,700 worth was exported ; in 1882 the value was £4,541; in 1884 it rose to £7,414.
TV hitebait is a delicious little fish, found in almost unlimited quantities on the west coast of the Middle Island, and in some rivers on the East Coast. It was at one time taken in such profusion that it was used for manure. But this barbaric waste has been stopped, and it is doubted whether the supply is not diminishing. A good deal is sent away by steamers to people residing in the North Island, and an attempt has been made to preserve it, but not with any great success, so far as finding a remunerative sale is concerned. No doubt much information has been collected by the Government upon this important subject of fisheries ; and it rests with them, or local governing bodies, to stimulate enterprise by practical assistance, by aiding in the importation of salmon and trout ova, and by providing the necessary skill in promoting its preservation and development. Mr. McKenzie says, in his report, “As a central station for fish-cilring and fish-tinning, Stewart Island seems to me to be one of the most suitable places in the world. It commands the best in-shore and off-shore fishing-grounds in the colony. Sawdust, the proper ingredient for smoking, can be obtained in abundance, for taking it away. There is plenty of timber and water. All that is wanted is population to supply the labour for tinning and curing factories, and a market for the preserved and cured fish. If capital, aided by Government subsidy, will start
81
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
operations here, Stewart Island will be one of the wealthiest provinces of the colony.”
Shipping and Trade.
Auckland takes the lead in shipping, and it is said that 140 men are regularly employed in the building of wooden steamers, sailing vessels, and boats. The models of the Auckland-built sailing vessels are very beautiful, and it is somewhat surprising that the trade has not extended more than it has done. Wellington has also done good work in building and reconstructing iron steamers : the latest iron steamer built there is the “ Maitai,” a credit to the colony. The kauri timber of Auckland is well adapted for ship-building, notwithstanding its tendency to shrink all ways after each dressing. There have been eighty-five steamers, altogether, built in the colony, and, with few exceptions, their machinery has been locally made. In 1884 the number of sailing vessels cleared outwards coastwise was 5,316; tonnage, 342,339; crews, 18,667. Steamers, 11,595 ; tonnage, 2,582,383; crews, 202,510: total vessels, 16,911; tonnage, 2,924,722; crews, 221,177. The inward clearances show almost the same figures. In sailing vessels Auckland claims 2,253, and the next highest in the list is Lyttelton, with 552 —showing clearly where the sailing coasting trade chiefly lies. The magnificent vessels of the Union Company and the New Zealand Shipping Company form fleets of which we have reason to be proud, and travellers and globe-trotters asseverate that for comfort and efficiency they are equal to any lines in the world. With a development of the island trade, and possibly with federation and annexation, shipping in New Zealand must come greatly to the front; and before long it will be seen that Nature has made New Zealand supreme as a maritime colony. An attempt was made last session (1885) to give to our seamen votes, so that they might obtain special representation in Parliament, but without success. This was not from any want of sympathy with either seamen or the shipping interest, but from the inconveniences and possible dangers which would arise from such a special qualification
Before long we trust that ships from our colony will no longer be confined to old beaten tracks, but will strike out for ports now seldom or never visited by our ships. In so doing they will extend the trade of our colony in a thousand various
6
82
PRIZE ESSAYS.
ways, and draw together the threads which are required to complete our commercial weh. Attention has been lately called to the Brazils. The New Zealand Shipping Company’s vessels are now touching fortnightly at Rio, on their homeward voyage; and by this means a footing might be secured for the Brazil and West Indian trade. Here is a market where the purity of our New Zealand textile fabrics, and the freshness and unadulterated nature of our products would be appreciated; and, with combination between manufacturer and shipping owner, we could land our goods at a price that would safely compete with other foreign shipments. At first the ship must be content with low freights, but, the trade once established, profit to all would be the undoubted result. Within a voyage of twenty days we have countries containing twenty millions of inhabitants, who are ready to purchase woollen fabrics and clothing, hams, bacon, cheese, and salt butter, frozen fresh butter, fish, game, fruits, preserved fruits and jams, smoked fish, sauces, pickles, candles, and soap, saddles, boots and uppers, colonial jewellery and greenstone and kauri-gum ornaments, ropes, twine, coal, timber, doors, sashes, and mouldings, paper, ornamental ironwork, carts and drays, potatoes, flour, biscuits, colonial wines, bottled ales and whiskey, pottery and tiles, cement, Mahurangi hydraulic lime, colonial furniture and kauri joinery, hats, rabbit fur, &c. The chief staples of Brazil are sugar, cotton, rum, molasses, coffee, tobacco, and bullion. There are also native cloths, diamonds,, hammocks, pearls, cordage, preserved tropical fruits, and nuts. There are vast possibilities from the introduction of raw cotton into New .Zealand, imperilling, perhaps, the purity of our woollen fabrics, but bringing into existence the cotton manufacturer {see paper by Mr. H. Cowper).
This matter of the trade with Brazil has already called forth several capital papers; and it is sincerely hoped that the practical outcome will he a co-operative combination, in order that a successful opening may be made. Then will the present numbers of our ships and seamen be multiplied, and the demand outside the colony for our goods will stimulate our own appreciation of them. The danger to be avoided is local competition, which may at the outset flood the selected market with New Zealand goods, and cause so discouraging a loss to the shippers as to prevent a continuance of the experiment. This can be easily avoided
85
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
by the formation of a mercantile co-operation, or export shipping company, which will he enabled to send out suitable selections, and time the periods of the arrival of each. Something like this has been begun in Canterbury, with fair success; hut the movement might well be extended more vigorously than at present. The Auckland merchants have obtained an exhaustive report on the island trade; and, provided that the requisite number of men will sacrifice a good deal of their energies at first, and invest capital in it, there is no doubt that the requisite opening will be found for the expansion of our trade. There is not much fear of our merchants failing in this enterprise. The time of development may seem long to those watching it, hut in the history of nations it will be seen phenomenally short. A nation of traders we are sprung from : it is still in the blood; and we cannot refuse to act up to instincts, even if we would. There is at present every opportunity of our colony being able to acquire Samoa, and buy out German interests for a comparatively small sum. This is one direction in which energy must be shown in order to make our manufactures successful; and, although unable to go fully into the question, it is looked upon as being of the first importance. The Government must be on the alert, and willing to expend the necessary funds at the proper time, and the people must he ready to support and hack up the action of their rulers. Look at the possibilities with regard to New Guinea. Annexation has been delayed for the present. Germany is jealous again, hut the fit will go off, and a few dollars at the right time will probably settle the question.
But, putting aside the difficulties of annexation—which, from a perusal of the parliamentary papers, appear to he great—and the question of the rights of the natives, a great trade might be developed with the present native possessors of that vast island. They raise large quantities of tropical produce, and have shown themselves willing to exchange their productions for European goods. The products known to exist at present are spices, camphor, gums, sandalwood, ebony, tobacco, sugar, vegetable ivory; besides which, birds of paradise, pearls, tortoiseshells, and other exotic products are to he met with in abundance. There is also evidence of the existence of gold, iron, tin, copper, and other minerals. In the high lands of the interior are plains suitable for breeding cattle and sheep. In exchange for this we
81
PRIZE ESSAYS.
can give the New Guinea-ites all the products of civilization, of which they will not be slow to learn the uses. We shall probably demoralize them to the extent of changing some of their present vices to those known to ourselves ; but we may ameliorate their condition in other respects.
While we have been busy at home it is but natural that we have neglected to look much abroad; but the moment that we can spare time from pressing home calls we should cast our eyes fax’ afield, and throw out our advance posts, to occupy before our neighbours.
Towards Fiji we have looked for some time with annexing eyes. In May this year the Imperial Government declared that they would not entertain the idea ; but even since then there arc tokens of modification of this view. Looking at the question only in its commercial aspect, and as it affects the development of New Zealand industries, its great importance is apparent. Trade follows the flag, and annexation or federation will become a more burning question than it is at present. The Fijians themselves appear willing and more than willing to join New Zealand; but there has been a feeling with the Home Government to put the drag on her too-enterprising young colonies, and to interpose with difficulties, perhaps to test their sincerity and earnestness. I say nothing about federation with Australia it is too purely political; but the Fiji and other island trade it is our right to secure, and, if we are in earnest in our endeavours to make ourselves a premier position as traders and manufacturers, we must allow no rival to beaf us in the race, but must use all lawful means to secure the prize ourselves. Our trade with Fiji is at present insignificant; it ought to be of first importance. Let us trade with them in everything we deal in. The time would soon come when articles of our own manufacture would take the lead.
Indian Trade. —The opportunity afforded by the Bombay International Exhibition to introduce New Zealand meats and clothing into India is not likely to be neglected. It is proposed to open the Exhibition in Bombay in December, 1886. The New Zealand woollen goods are at present not known. Their lightness, warmness, and softness would recommend them; but of course there would be fierce opposition from the traders in established British stuffs, and price would be a difficulty until
85'
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES,
the real value of the goods became known. The trade in frozen meat would he confined to European consumers, as the natives will not touch any kind of meat slaughtered or handled by Europeans. Sir James Fergusson, writing from Bombay, says, “ As a rule, the meat supplied in the market is poor compared to Australian and New Zealand meat; but very good meat can he obtained by the larger consumers, and generally that supplied to Government House is little, if at all, inferior. A great many Europeans would pay a somewhat higher price for a really good article, say fid. to 7d. per pound instead of 3d. or 4d. Some of the Parsces would eat imported meat.” The Indian market is more accessible for our woollens, then; and it is to ho hoped that the forthcoming Indian and Colonial Exhibition, to be held in London, will do something to open the trade, and that it will he followed up by the Bombay Exhibition.
Industries for which the Raw Material is imported.
The fairest and best way of promoting the manufacture in the colony of various kinds of merchantable commodities is by admitting the raw material duty free. The Customs Act of 18S2 provides that certain specified articles and materials (and others, as may from time to time be specified by the Commission), which are suited only for and are to be used and applied solely in the fahfication of goods within the colony are admitted free, In many cases this has been found to be sufficient to establish a manufacture .in the colony. For instance, in writing papers, there are several firms in the colony supplying writing papers at English prices, plus the freight and duty; and they are enabled to do so because they can import “ writing paper of sizes not less than the size known as demy, when in original .wrappers and with uncut edges, as it leaves the mill,” duty free ; and the duty on manufactured paper is 15' per cent, ad valorem. Again, bookbinders’ materials are admitted duty free. Indeed, the following may be taken as a general list of manufacturers’ imports admitted free; Aerated-water makers’ material, confectioners’ material, blindmakers’ material, bookbinders’ material, bootmakers’ material, hrassworkers’ material, brushmakers’ material, carriage-builders’ material, dairy utensils, ropemakers’ material, coppenvorkers’ material, cotton - clothiers’ material, farm implements, hatters’ material, saddlers’ material, printers’
86
PRIZE ESSAYS.
material, builders’ (nearly all free) and contractors’ material, machinery for agricultural purposes, machinery for brick- and tile-making ; machinery for planing, punching, sawing, shearing, turning, and quartz-crushing; machinery for mills and looms, machinery for steam vessels, machinery for wool- and haypressing, manufacturing chemists’ material, painters’ material, millers’ material, shirtings in piece, workmen’s tools, staymakers’ material, tailors’ trimmings, tinsmiths’ material, upholsterers’ material, and zineworkers’ material.
j ~ —• The above list also points out pretty well what manufactures are established in the colony, and most of these are progressing fairly. Why perambulators should be admitted free, seeing that there are makers in the colony, I cannot explain, except it is to encourage reproductiveness, and take off one of the many burdens of the parents of the occupant of the perambulator. But, with a long list of manufactures which can be made in the colony, the difficulty is to get them known outside the particular district in which they are made. Not long ago I was shown in the South Island a couple of wooden tobacco-pipes made in Auckland. These were of a very superior finish and make, and the price was certainly not more than that of imported articles of the same value. But it cost my friend 3s. 6d. for freight on these two pipes, and I have not seen any others since, though I have no doubt they are on sale in some parts. If the opportunity was taken at this Exhibition time, when people’s attention and sympathy are attracted to colonial industries, *to vigorously and systematically push the sale of colonial goods, by means of travelling agents, who would combine many lines in their commission, and who would perhaps imitate insurance agents, and give entertaining and instructive lectures upon the necessity for the people supporting colonial industries, much might be done. It is useless to expect importing houses to bother themselves with local manufactures; they may be neutral, but that is as much as we can expect of them, inasmuch as it pays them far better to import direct from large houses at Home rather than to collect from local makers; while the endeavour to be both maker and retailer in a simple shop or store will only be successful as a demonstration of the possibility of making a particular article in the colony, but will not establish it as an industry.
87
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES,
Other Industries.
The manufacture of soap has been attended with success in the colony, and has fairly driven out the imported article, except in fancy kinds. Messrs. Kitchen and Son and Messrs. McLeod are, I believe, the largest manufacturers in the colony; and the exhibits of the former firm at the Melbourne, Christchurch, and New Zealand Industrial Exhibition have excited universal admiration. The same outlet for production over home demand is to he found, as for other manufactures, by looking after new markets, as pointed out in the section on trade and shipping. It is estimated that the value of the soap and candles produced in the colony is about £120,000. In 1884 candles to the value of £74,452 were imported, at a duty of' lid. per pound. The value of common soap imported was £1,836, and of fancy soap, £3,696. We are hardly likely to reduce the quantity of imported fancy soap materially, because those who use toilet soaps will generally pay large prices for special brands, such as Pears, Ilirnmel’s and other celebrated makers. With the manufacture of soap and candles is connected the manufacture of sulphuric acid and artificial manures. One by-product of the candle industry finds a use and a ready market in the woollen factories engaged in making tweed, blankets, hosiery, &c., taking the place of the expensive oil of Gallipoli; while the fatty acids from these factories is reconverted into stearine, fit for soap- and candle-making. A further outcome from sulphuric acid and tallow might be the manufacture of glycerine, with its possibilities in relation to dynamite, gas-meters, paper, ink, leather, &c. The raw material for the manufacture of sulphuric acid is plentiful within the colony, yet it is at present brought from Victoria, though the value of the whole import for 1884 only amounts to £157, and it is admitted free of duty. The plant for its manufacture is said to be very expensive, and at present it appears wisest to import it. The question put to Mr. McLeod, to this effect, “ Is there anything which can be done by amendment of the law which would in any way further your trade ?” was answered, “ I think not.” Mr. Kitchen’s evidence before the Koyal Commission of 1880 was that the candle duty should remain as it is.
oxiuuiu rcmtuu as it is. Biscuits. —The total value of plain and fancy biscuits imported in 1884 was £l,OOO, so that it may fairly be said we
88
PRIZE ESSAYS.
make our own biscuits. We also exported, during the same year, five thousand pounds’ worth, chiefly to Fiji and South Sea Islands.
Beer. —We ought to do a larger export trade in beer than we do ; the climate and water of the colony is specially favourable to brewing, and our brewers can turn out an article equal to any beer in the world. That they do not do so always, but rather turn their attention to brewing cheap “ swipes,” is the fault of the conditions under which they brew. In 1884 we exported 5,349 gallons of colonial draught ale, worth £535, and a very small quantity of bottled beer. In that year we imported bottled beer to the value of £80,715, at a duty of Is. 6d. per gallon, and beer in bulk to the value of £4,701, at a duty of Is. 3d. per gallon. The duty on colonial beer is 3d. per gallon. Surely this must be an exception to what protective duties would do. Yet the duty is not looked upon by the Customs as a protective duty;. for, if it had a prohibitive effect, it would have to be reduced for fiscal purposes, or a corresponding increase placed upon colonial beer. There are 100 breweries and thirty-four separate malt-houses in the colony, employing about six hundred men, and producing five million gallons of beer annually. The hop-growing industry is chiefly centred in Nelson and Marlborough, and a goodly quantity is grown —how much exactly it is impossible to say, but the value of the hops imported in 1884 was £5,081; in the year before it was £18,138, a very satisfactory decrease. We exported in 1883 3,985cwt. of hops, worth £62,861; in 1882, 704cwt., worth £11,019.
Confectionery is largely made in the colony, and fully twothirds of the total consumed may be said to be of colonial manufacture. In ten years the import of confectionery decreased from £19,178 to £10,190; and this in the face of a largely-increased population, and without the slightest ground for supposing that the “ sweet-tooth ” of childhood, and of many grown persons, has lost its keenness. In 1844 the value of confectionery imported was £9,845, against £10,190 for 1883. The duty is 15 per cent, ad valorem.
Jam is now being made extensively in the colony, of good quality, though some manufacturers are accused of mixing pumpkin, turnip, and melons with their jam. Certainly jam
83'
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
made in a certain part of New Zealand, and much advertised, is a very tasteless compound. Considering the splendid fruit which can he grown in the colony, especially in the North, it is strange that fruit-preserving has not taken a more prominent place. Hobart Town jam has a good reputation in all the colonies, and a large quantity is imported from there : half the quantity which comes is from the United Kingdom. The value of jam imported last year was £10,552, of which £6,094 came from the United Kingdom and £3,409 from Tasmania. In 1883 the value imported altogether was £22,923, which tells a favourable story of the development of the manufacture within the colony. The duty is lid. per lb.
Fruits. —Fruit-growing is an industry for which New Zealand is said to he singularly well adapted. Peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums, melons, and grapes grow luxuriously in the North Island; while apples, pears, and other fruit thrive especially well in the Southern. . Yet the retail price of fruit is ridiculously high, and can only be accounted for by the high price of labour, and the demand for a large profit on the part of the retailer. All the reports seem to agree that fruit-growing should prove highly remunerative; and all have to impliedly admit that so far it is not on a satisfactory footing. What is required is systematic cultivation, and proper business arrangements for the disposal of the produce. An irregular supply can never command a profitable market, and a few failures discourage the grower. Fresh fruit preserving, especially peaches, by means of sealed cans, has been established at the Thames; but the article produced cannot yet he said to vie with that of such Californian firms as Cutting and Co., consequently it does not command the same price in the market.
In Aerated Waters and Cordials a large manufacture goes on within the colony, there being seventy-nine employing 228 hands, with an invested capital of £66,900, and making about 650,000 dozen of the various drinks coming under the head of aerated waters and cordials. The value of the aerated water imported in 1884 was £2,481. There is no duty, presumably, because the import is chiefly made for the sake of the bottles, which are retained and used by our manufacturers.
Linseed, Rape, Canary, and other Oil-producing Seeds. —The growth of linseed would he of great value, and bonuses have
90
ram: essays.
been offered for the manufacture of linseed oil. It should be a very remunerative crop, as it takes less time from seed-time to harvest than almost any other crop, and will grow thirty bushels to the acre, on well-farmed land. Its price in London varies from €2 16s. to €3 2s. per quarter, and it is principally imported from Russia. The development of linseed cultivation would lead to the establishment of mills for the production of oil and the manufacture of paint and other oils, of which an enormous value is annually imported. In 1884 143,989 gallons of linseed oil, worth €16,869, was imported.
Paints. —A great manulecture of paints is possible to the colony. New Zealand is rich in such requisites as manganese, hematite, copper, ochres, silicates, and kauri gum. Hematite is manufactured at the Thames and Nelson; and is largely used. Gur kauri gum comes back to us in the shape of varnish, and might be made at home.
Mimosa Bark. —This is imported largely into the colony, although it could he grown hen upon any ordinary soil. There is an unlimited demand for the article in Europe, and the price is increasing. In Victoria mimosa plantations yield a net return of €4 to €5 an acre. The best kinds to grow are the Acacia decurrens, the Acacia pycuantha, and the Acacia saligna. A valuable gum, which ha become an article of export from Australia, is obtained from those trees.
Quinine can he grown in open fern-tree gullies to the north of the Auckland Isthmus; and large returns might be looked for from a systematic and careful cultivation of this valuable medicinal plant.
Opium could be grown with profit, and in Victoria careless cultivation has resulted in a profit of .€3O an acre. The kinds recommended for this colony are Papaver somnifera and Alpha glabratum% On ordinary soils the plant is of very easy cultivation. It can be sown broadcast and thinned out, or sown in a seed-bed and pricked out. Three or four days after the petals have fallen the capsule is scored with a small knife, and the juice that exudes is scraped off and formed into balls. This is the whole process for preparing the product for market. The Indian exports of opium alone arc valued at €13,500,000. The value of Chinese-grown opium is fully equal to that of Indian. Common Hemlock — Digitalis (Foxglove). —These plants are
!)1
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
naturalized in New Zealand, and could be grown as articles of commerce.
Carroway: —This could be easily grown here. It is used in considerable quantities. The same culture that suits common parsley would suffice for the carroway.
Santonine (Worm Medicine), Henbane, Belladonna, Camphor, Laurel and Sassafras Laurel, Liquorice, and Saffron. —These could be all grown and manufactured in the colony. Henbane and belladonna were introduced into Auckland some years ago, and did very well in the gardens. They are of easy culture, especially henbane, as it might be grown by the acre more easily than turnips. The leaves, stems, and seeds of the plant are used. Liquorice is cultivated in Nelson to a small extent. It belongs to the pea family: its cultivation is simple : the root is the portion used. Spanish liquorice is simply the inspissated sap of the root.
Perfumes could be produced from flowers with great advantage, the Oamaru district being admirably suited for the growth of perfume flowers which are not affected by frosts, such as lavender. I understand that the perfumes exhibited by Messrs. Mason, of Auckland, and which make an elegant appearance, are manufactured from perfumes imported in fat, and distilled in Auckland.
Peruvian Bark (Cinchona Officinalisl could be cultivated in parts of the Auckland Province, and should prove highly remunerative. Some very valuable papers have been written by Mr, Thomas Kirk, F.L.S., on this subject, and on the economic plants which might be cultivated in this colony, from which I have drawn information. Mr. Kirk gives a considerable list of drug-yielding plants suitable for local cultivation, the'perusal of which would afford valuable hints to those desiring to add to their profitable crops. .
Wattle Bark might be produced with profit in this colony. The wattle flourishes on poor land, and might be grown extensively. The age at which the trees may be stripped with the best advantage has been determined at from five to ten years. The three species from which the bark is derived are the Acacia pycuantha, or the broad-leaf golden-and-green wattle; the Acacia decurrens, or black wattle; and the Acacia dealbata, or silver wattle. The first-named is superior to any other, but is
92
PRIZE ESSAYS.
smaller and of slower growth than the black and silver species. The silver wattle is not used generally for tanning purposes. The black wattle is of vigorous, robust habit, and .for commercial purposes is equal to the broad-leaf. The wood of the wattle is of considerable value for cask-staves, axle-spokes, axeand pick-handles, and many other articles requiring wood of tough, durable grain. It makes the best firewood for ovens and furnaces. It is also good for fencing-rails. A good profit may also be derived from the sale of the gum which exudes from the trees. The seed can be purchased at 10s. per lb. On loose, sandy soil it can be sown broadcast; on hard soils a ploughfurrow should be made, at intervals of *sft. to 6ft.
Cement. —ln 1884 we imported 68,510 barrels of cement, worth £38,708, with a duty of Is. per barrel. In 1882 the value was £68,837, not including damaged cement, on which no duty was paid. There is a satisfactory decrease in these figures, and points to the use of Mahurangi lime and other equivalents for Portland cement. Messrs. Wilson and Co., of Mahurangi, have now eighteen kilns at work, and are able to turn out 300,000 bushels per annum. They say the supply of raw material is unlimited, and the works can he increased to any extent required, and that they ask no bonus, no protection; hut simply that the Government will give them some practical assistance by using their lime in all public works for which it may be adapted. It is now admitted on Government works, and is used extensively by private firms. There seems to be good ground for saying that there are large deposits of limestone throughout the colony. On the west coast of the Middle Island it is found very extensively, though not of first-class quality. At Timaru, Oxford, Selwyn, Dunedin, Thames, and other places limestone and chalk ate found, and on a small scale lime-burning goes on. So far, the Mahurangi ground hydraulic lime is almost the only Colonial lime fairly in the market, except that which is locally produced for local consumption.
Fungus. —This curious article of export deserves passing notice. The export has risen from fifty-eight tons, value £1,927, in 1872, to 100 tons, value £18,939, in 1882. The whole supply is sent to China hy way of the Hawaiian Islands or San Francisco. Only one kind is used—namely, that known as
93
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
Himeola polytricha, easily distinguished from other fungi by its greyish colour outside and reddish-brown interior when dried.
Rabbit - skins. —One of the greatest pests known in the colony—the rabbits—produce an article of export which deserves a place in our list. In 1882 the value of rabbit-skins exported by us was £88,725. Granted that the colony would willingly be without a single rabbit, these figures mean employment for many men. In 1883 the value was £100,955 ;in 1881 it was £107,514.
Pottery, Earthenware, Patent Bricks-, Tiles, Drain-pipes, Firebricks.—This industry is well-established, and the exhibits in this department at the Exhibition were among the most interesting. Considerable artistic taste has already been shown, but improvement in this respect can be almost boundless. Filters, ornamental jars, tea-pots, flower-pots, cisterns, and mosaic tiles are all exhibited, besides abundance of drain-pipes and coarser wares. Considering the heavy freight on these goods, and the danger of breakage in transit, the colony ought to produce all its own earthenware. Until my visit to the Exhibition I had no knowledge that such things were to be procured of colonial manufacture, and I have no doubt many others were equally ignorant.
The workings in metal were especially noticeable, Messrs. A. and J. Burt’s and Messrs. Scott Brothers’ exhibits being most attractive. There is a good trade being done now in iron and brass workings, as well as in machinery generally; and in all the large cities there are foundries which reflect credit upon the owners, and are rapidly expanding with an increasing trade. But the complaint is general that the Government railway workshops compete unfairly with private enterprise.
Carriage-making appears to be making good bead-way; and, with improved roads and increasing wealth and business development, the trade in carriage-making should prosper exceedingly. The specimens at the Exhibition seemed to be admirable examples of the carriage-builder’s art. Wagonette, sulky, spring-trap, and double and single buggy were really equal to anything I have seen in the same lines. Whether the price was also able to compete with foreign makers I was unable learn. Why railway carriages should not be now constructed in the colony is a question which
94
PRIZE ESSAYS,
I hope will be answered by encouraging the manufacture of them here at once.
Paper-making has been established, and rough papers are exhibited. The total value of paper imported was £112,000. Of course much of this will continue to be imported for a long while; but there is printing paper imported to the value of £63,000 which might well be made in the colony, although the fact of its being admitted duty free will militate against the colonial industry being successfully carried on.
Glass. —Two or three glassworks are already established, and make bottles, lamp-glasses, chimneys, &c. The raw material for glass-making abounds, but it has, so far, been found more profitable to collect broken glass for re-smelting. I did not notice any exhibit of glass at the Exhibition, but a company has recently been started at Kaiapoi for the manufacture of glass. The import of glass for 1884 is as under : Bottles, £7,020; plate, £5,268; window, £14,204; glassware, £13,203.
Marble, Slate. —Marble is shown at the Exhibition from Caswell Sound Quarry; and, though it cannot be said to be as fine as Parian, it seems a fairly marketable commodity. Considerable expense has been gone to by the company, and it is to be hoped that the trade will develop into a large and successful one. Slate is to be found in the Kakanui Kange, but lam not aware that it has yet been utilized, nor what prospects there are of successfully producing roofing-slates within the colony.
J r 0 o J ’ Iron. —So far iron smelting has not been successful, though large sums have been spent, and vast deposits of iron ores exist in the colony. There are very extensive works at Onehunga, but it is too soon to speak positively about them. A large quantity of hematite paint is manufactured from the Parapara hematite ore, and is the most approved paint for covering iron buildings with.
Petroleum. —There seems to be good hope that, before long, this most useful article will be found in payable quantities. In Gisborne works have been going steadily on for a long time; and, though so far no signal success has been met with, there still appears to be good prospect of the shareholders “ striking ile” to their own and the colony’s advantage.
Lengthy as is the list given and treated of above, it does not cover nearly all the ground that might be gone over, as will be
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
95
seen on reference to the catalogue on the following pages. Taken together the pages written should serve to show the multiplicity of the industries which are already started and doing fairly well, and only require wholesome support and encouragement to further develop themselves. If the result of the Exhibition and this contest of essays incites to a study of the question of our industries generally, and to a strong desire to further them by using our own productions as much as possible, a great end will have been achieved and great good must result.
Some noticeable branches of colonial manufactures, well established, and easily procurable in the colony by those who know where to send for the article required—taken from inspection at the Exhibition, and notes made thereat : Wood ware of all kinds, wickerware, turnery; wooden pipes, holders, &c.; confectioners’ and carvers’ and gilders’ moulds; veneers, coopers’ ware, billiard balls; medicines, and druggists’ goods; potteryornamental and otherwise, coal; brass work and ironwork, preserved meat, tallow, neatsfoot oil and trotter oil, lime; soap common and toilet; candles and oil-cake, blacking, hematite paint, glue, leather of all kinds, bouedust and artificial manures, barbed wire and fixings, farm implements generally of all kinds' cooking-ranges and stoves, steam-engines and pumps; tin-, galvanized, and japanned ware; safes, machine tools, furniture of°all kinds, bookbinding and engraving, lithography, wrapping paper, cardboard boxes, violin strings, carriages, buggies, carts, &c., harness and leather-work, bricks, lime, cement, rope and cordage, woollen fabrics of all kinds, yarns, boots and shoes, wigs, clothing, taxidermists’ goods, jewellery; flour, oatmeal' barley, peas, seeds, and cereals; malt, hops, ham and bacon' biscuits, confectionery; preserved fish, soup, and meats; preserved fruits and jams; sauces, aerated waters, beer, coffee, and spices.
Industhii s G knerally
In an address to the New Zealand Manufacturers Association the lecturer points out ta . , taking our imports roughly at six millions, one and a half millions is for articles which could he produced in New Zealand by merely extending the industries already in existence—that is, for articles which we make ourselves, but do not make enough of ; one and a half millions is
-96
PRIZE ESSAYS.
for articles that could readily be produced by establishing new industries the conditions for which are favourable; one million for articles that could be produced when the resources of the colony are fully developed; and two millions for the products of tropical countries, and manufactures, which there is no chance of ■superseding by local supplies. It is thus possible to produce and make three-fourths of, the goods we buy from other countries. Now, if the people of the colony were fully employed as it is, it would he plain that no anxiety need be felt because of this neglect to produce all we might; it would be merely proof that we were otherwise'so profitably engaged that we had not time to grow these things for ourselves, and could, with less labour than it takes to produce them, produce other articles which, being intrinsically more valuable, will more than pay for them—just as a skilled labourer or professional man can by his earnings command the labour of several or perhaps many other lesser skilled men. But, unfortunately, we are not all so profitably employed: there is distress among agriculturists, palpably because they are not growing that which will pay them best; there is dullness in building, because unless there is constant progress in trade building naturally languishes. Manufactures make cities, wool and corn make lords and labourers. Much as we love our Mother-country, we are not to take for gospel all her doctrines of free-trade and open ports. “ Grow wool, grain, and meat for us, and we will send you our manufactures in return !” they cry, in a burst of patriotic and liberal generosity. What could be a fairer exchange than this ? But we say, “ No, though the higher aim may be more difficult at first, and may not be so clear in Cobdcn-like logic, we prefer the task of creating a compact nation in ourselves, a heterogeneous whole, which will have a more glorious and in the end more protecting influence than the arcadian simplicity you so strongly recommend.” The discussion on federation has done much to open our eyes to our real position among the colonies, and to the really good work that has been done amongst us, and the openings already made in various industries ; but, above all, to the natural advantages we possess from our insular position; and how, if we only push on, we shall be able to carry trade ahead of other colonies or nations, not by unfairly driving them out of what legitimately belongs to them, hut by
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
simply appropriating to ourselves that work which we can best do, leaving to others that which is best suited to them. In all history, has there ever been a great undertaking carried through without some checks or disasters at first ? Britons are notorious for requiring a reverse to stimulate them to victory, and refuse to know when they ought to acknowledge a defeat, and so turn many a disaster into a success. The saddest of all sights has been when Britons have divided among themselves in face of a rival or foe; and this was conspicuously the case when the Auckland merchants were competing for the island trade against the German connection. Combination amongst themselves would have carried them through easily; but local rivalries prevented this occurring : and, though satisfactory progress is being made in this trade, the struggle for supremacy is prolonged, when it might have been over and the game in our own hands. Many of our industries are now being worked by joint-stock companies satisfactorily; but the institution of a joint stock company is always a delicate operation : if any icy breath comes upon it when in swaddling clothes it is either killed or rendered sickly, and will have from ■ the beginning the seeds of decline in its constitution. If the fates are propitious it has to meet, then, the attacks of the speculator, the fluctuations of the market, the criticisms of the public, or, perhaps more fatal than all, the overwhelming confidence of the public in sending its shares to a premium, then the risks of inferior management, the changes of management, until at last it either succumbs, or else grows so strong as to resist all such attacks, to become a great institution, wielding perhaps political power, or, what is in the end much the same thing, believed to wield political power, with only wealthy men on its proprietary, and consequently no longer in any true sense a co-operative association, making it a still harder task for the next company in the same line to blossom into life and arrive at maturity.
On the other hand the private manufacturer has to contend against insufficiency of capital, trade jealousy, and, above these, with the difficulty of getting his goods into the market. A general trader finds it inconvenient to trade with Auckland for sugar, cement, or hardware, with Dunedin for w'oollen fabrics, with Wellington for preserved meat; and still more inconvenient to deal with A, a small maker of tinware; B, a small brush-
7
98
PRIZE ESSAYS.
maker; and soon. The temptation is to give as large a general order as possible to the representative of an importing house, who can supply many hundred different lines on one invoice. For instance, a man would be likely to buy Portland cement from a local merchant, rather than incur the delay of sending for Mahurangi lime ; hut if there was a local agent for the lime he might exercise a free choice. The New Zealand Clothing Factory are setting the example of opening retail shops for the sale of their goods in almost every town in the colony, and success appears to be attending the experiment. Should the woollen factories do likewise a great step will be obtained. As communication becomes more and more cheap, regular, and expeditious, so w ill interprovincial trade increase; and the admirably-conducted weekly journals published in the chief towns are doing much to promote interchange in trade, and to encourage and foster the development of colonial industry, and nearly every week there appears the material for a prize essay on one or more branches of the subject. What they are unable, however, to do is to find the capital for the manufacturer or the roads for the agriculturist : the first must be found by combination, the second by the Government of the country.
Edxtcation.
We are now spending half a million a year on education, and' he is a hold politician who would dare to advocate a reduction. This is the one sure and certain thing the workingclasses have in return for their taxation; and how they value it may be tested by proposing a reduction of the vote. “ Education —free, secular, and compulsory ” is the system which, after many a fierce conflict, has obtained the support of the many. That some of our fellow-colonists are conscientious enough to refuse to avail themselves of State education, on religious grounds is no objection to the system, though it does credit to those who are willing to pay twice in order to avoid a compromise with their religious convictions. We arc training up a generation of thinkers, and w T e may be certain that a large percentage will he able to show that the opportunities afforded have enabled their natural ability to shine out beyond their fellows. This universal education will undoubtedly tend to make mere unskilled labour scarce; for it must be the veriest dullard in the school-
99
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
class who will he content with a labourer’s lot. Here, then, is another reason for providing industries requiring intelligence, if we wish to keep our youths in the colony. The industrial exhibition has shown admirable examples of inventive and mechanical skill among our young people, and this should be encouraged in every possible way, so that we may rival the unique faculty of the Americans for labour-saving inventions. I do not pretend that America can claim the palm for scientific discovery or invention, or for artistic skill; but for mechanical appliances, for neatness of workmanship, for elegance in common working tools she has shown the way to all others. And what are the characteristics that have tended to produce this ? General education, quickness of perception, the apprehension of the situation that, where labour is dear, the most that can be got from an implement is the thing to be desired; and the result is that, in tools and implements, the American models stand as things of beauty alongside the uncouth British articles with which people have been content for generations. It is true the British manufacturer has not been slow in noticing and copying what his American competitor has done, but the credit belongs to the Yankee.
This, then, is the function of education—to diffuse cultivated intelligence among the masses, so that genius, wherever found, may have its fair chance. The present system may he supplemented more than it is, by instruction in the principles of mechanics and physics, and by paying particular attention to directing the pupils’ minds to the study of what has been done before in the way of inventions, arts, and industries; by demanding higher and higher qualifications for the teachers ; until the industry of education —which is already highly remunerated in comparison to what it was a few years ago—shall rank among the most elevated occupations in the land.
That nation is in no danger of falling to the rearward which is constantly examining itself, and comparing its progress with that of others. A nation of grumblers is generally a nation of progress. We grumble, hut we also exult. “ Well, what do you think of the Exhibition?” said Ito a friend. “ I am proud,” said he, “ to belong to a colony that can produce such a display of its own industry.” . The remark was not, perhaps, original—l had heard something like it a good many
100
PRIZE ESSAYS.
times ; —so much the better. The more that feeling is diffused the nearer has the attainment of the object of the Exhibition been achieved. Let it be known that three years hence a still grander Exhibition will be held, and if the colony paid the whole expenses it would have a good bargain in the result. The credit gained now by our youths will incite scores of others to work and to give their wits fair play. The knowledge of what can be done in the colony will secure customers by the hundred to our manufacturers—a livelier feeling of what is due by ourselves to ourselves will be, as it has been already, engendered. The present enterprise excites more national feeling than previous Exhibitions, especially more than those adventured by private speculators—though all thanks to those private persons who taught us a practical lesson in the art of Exhibition-holding ! The profit to exhibitors is not so direct as where they can sell their goods while on exhibit, but it is none the less sure. AVe shall be none tbe more inclined to put up with poor work because it is colonial, but we shall more eagerly seek for excellence in the colony, and gladly be consumers of colonial products in preference to those imported but which possess a greater intrinsic merit.
A humble suggestion may here he made that a complete catalogue should he printed in large quantities, showing the exhibits, and the judgment passed upon them, the names of exhibitors, and their addresses ; and that these catalogues should be distributed throughout the colony, and circulated as largely as possible. This would enable the good effect of the Exhibition to be sustained as long as possible, and probably it would then endure until the time came round for another gathering together of industries. The catalogue should be bound as serviceably as circumstances permitted, and a price fixed which, while securing the Committee from loss, should be low enough to secure a wide demand. Thousands who have been unable to leave their homes would gladly purchase these catalogues, and would avail themselves of the information afforded to aid as far as they could New Zealand industries by purchasing within the colony. People will not buy inferior articles at a high price because they arc colonial; but, all other things being equal, I have still faith enough in my fellow-colonists to believe that they will give their own country the preference.
101
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
Conclusion.
I part with this essay with reluctance, conscious of many defects, and feeling how much better it might have been, considering the greatness of the subject. It is, however, some satisfaction to find, in looking over the pages written, and comparing them with the remarks of His Excellency the Governor at the closing of the Exhibition, that the same idea is conveyed throughout—namely, that not in sudden, desperate efforts to achieve a position as, a great manufacturing country, but rather in a constant pressing onward, is the desired end to be achieved ; and that the retrospect of the last twenty years gives us the greatest possible encouragement for the future.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
102
PRIZE ESSAYS.
103
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
lot
PRIZE ESSAYS.
Table showing the Value of the Imports and Exports of the Colony from and to each of the under-mentioned places during the year 1884.*
THE PRESENT CONDITION AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF THE INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES OF NEW ZEALAND, AND THE BEST MEANS OF FOSTERING THEIR DEVELOPMENT.
AN ESSAY; BY GEOEGE ROBEET HAET.
“ Nunquam dormio.”
In dealing with the subject selected for the essay I take it that the condition relative to the present position of the industrial resources of the colony means that a brief review of the point at which the various principal industries of New' Zealand have arrived—as evidenced by the late Exhibition—will be considered sufficient. At any rate, I purpose dealing with it in this way, as I feel that the matter of fostering the local industries now at work, and of encouraging those which may hereafter be developed, is by far the most important branch of the subject to which the essayist can direct' his attention in the hope that good may result therefrom.
Viewed in this light, I will first refer to what cannot but be regarded as the most important of all our industries—namely, the conversion of the raw material of wool into the manufactured articles. No doubt the mineral resources of the country, and the manufactures arising therefrom, must be regarded as very important factors in the sum of prosperity of the colony; but still they are subsidiary to a large extent to that industry which profitably absorbs so large a proportion of our chief staple product.
Beginning in but a small way, the woollen factories of Kaiapoi, Mosgiel, and Roslyn have placed the industry to which
106
PRIZE ESSAYS.
lam referring on almost the highest pinnacle of success. They have not only opened up new avenues of employment for large numbers of our people, mainly amongst those for whom it is always difficult to obtain work—namely, our young people, but they have also created what is most important to the interests of the colony as a whole—a local market, and demand for the wool grown here. Prior to the establishment of these factories the wool-grower had no other market for his produce but the Home one, and thus the amount received in payment for his wool was depreciated by the charges which he had to pay, and the fluctuations of a market over which, to a large extent, he had no-con-trol ; besides which the expending power of the principal portion of our producing population was curtailed by so much. Now this is altered, and the result is due to the growth of the industry under notice. The wool-grower now finds that he has a local market open to him, capable of absorbing a fairly-ap-preciable quantity of the raw material ; and he can obtain a full price for his wool without incurring the various charges for freight, insurance, &c., or the risk and delay of a long seavoyage.
With regard to the manufactured, article produced by the woollen companies, what I take to be the greatest test of the present good position of the industry is the fact that not only have they succeeded in almost entirely superseding the imported article in the colony itself, but that a large and increasing trade has sprung up in Australia for the products of the looms at Kaiapoi and elsewhere. One branch of manufacture in which, of late years, great advances have been made by our local woollen factories has been that of ready-made clothing. This has developed into a most important item in the work of all the factories ; indeed it may be said that it now forms the most important branch of local industry comprised under the head of “ Woollen .Manufactures.” In the production of blankets, also, the factories have made marked progress; so much so that their products are now inquired after all over the Australasian Colonies, in preference to those manufactured in England or elsewhere.
Let me here briefly, and without going into statistics too deeply, .trace the rise and progress of one of these factories—namely, that of the Kaiapoi Woollen Company. I select this.
107
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
one, not from any desire to make invidious comparisons, but because I can the more readily refer to the facts and figures, and also as the progress of this factory is typical of that of the other two in the southern part of the colony. The comparison of what was with what is, as having reference to- the Kaiapoi Woollen Eactory, will enable a more satisfactory estimate to be arrived at as to the present position of this important industry than would otherwise be the case. Starting, in 1875, with a capital of £30,000, the career of the company was commenced under very favourable auspices, the bonus of .£.2,000 offered by the Provincial Government for the encouragement of the woollen industry being gained by it. Difficulties, however, were experienced, as in the early days of all industries, and in 1877 the whole concern was sold for £7,000. In July, 1878, the present company was formed, with a capital of £15,000, of which the extension of operations has necessitated the increase to £lOO,OOO. Since then its career has been most prosperous, as is shown by the fact that, after paying in one year no less a sum than £30,000 for land, plant, and buildings, the company were enabled to declare a dividend of 10 per cent, and carry forward a substantial sum. As to the extent of the trade done, it may be gathered from the fact that about B,ooolb. of washed wool, equal to 16,0001b. of greasy, passes through- the carding-room every week. At the works at Kaiapoi 240 hands arc regularly employed; whilst at the clothing factory in Christchurch some 170 more are engaged, the latter being principally women and girls. Almost every description of woojlen goods, from the coarsest to the finest, is produced in the mills; and many other industries are dependent upon or have been stimulated, by this one.
Thus, I take it, the colony can he fairly congratulated upon the progress made by its chief industry. All who saw the magnificent display made at the Wellington Exhibition by the three principal factories to which reference has been made will, I am sure, agree with me in awarding the palm for importance to the woollen industries of New Zealand. Given tire conditionsto which I w-ill refer later on, and the future prospects of our woollen industries must be such as to exercise a very important influence on the future prosperity gf the colony as a whole.
Next in order I come to the metal industries, and here
108
PRIZE ESSAYS.
again we have cause to indulge in what Mr. Anthony Trollope designated as the colonial habit of “ blowing.” The present position of this industry is an exceedingly satisfactory one. We have seen that a colonial firm has been enabled to undertake to-supply locomotives for the Government railways, and that in another part of the colony iron ship-building has been carried out most creditably alike to the colony and the firm undertaking the work. The exhibit of the Public Works Department in the Wellington Exhibition has shown to those who have inspected it that our workers in metals in the colony have been able to construct work in connection with the openingup of the country which would not disgrace the Old Country. Reference, may be made, in illustration of this, to.the Rakaia Gorge Bridge, the Wingatui Viaduct, and other works which have been carried out under the supervision of the Public Works Department. Viewed as typical exhibits of the metal industries of the colony, those sent to the Wellington Exhibition by Messrs. Scott Bros., of Christchurch, and Messrs. A. and T. Burt, of Dunedin, are such as no country need he ashamed of. Such work as this shows far more emphatically than I could demonstrate in a dozen pages of manuscript what progress has been made in the past in reference to this industry, and what great results we may look for hereafter in the light of the experience which we have gained. Nearly every article exhibited by these two firms—and, as I have said, I only select them as being typical of others existing in the colony—would, some few years back, have had .to be imported. In finish of the more artistic or luxurious kind of work and general completeness our colonial products under this head will fairly bear comparison with the manufactures of the older centres of industry in England. If this be so —— and there can he but little doubt on the subject—then I think it may fairly be assumed that the second of our principal industries must bo taken to have achieved success, and to be progressing onward satisfactorily.
In an important branch of this industry the advance made in an almost incredibly short period has been most marked. I refer to the production of agricultural implements, an industry which is daily assuming vnry large proportions amongst us, particularly in the southern part of New Zealand. It is not so
109
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
many years ago since a colonial plough, or indeed any agricultural implement of importance, was almost unknown, or at any rate unused, amongst the farmers of the colony. With that true British conservatism w r hich it is almost impossible to uproot from the minds of the people, the agriculturists of that period still clung with unfailing tenacity to the unwieldy ploughs and harrows of their native land. The infant industry had thus, as might be expected under the circumstances, a very hard struggle ; but then the victory which has been gained since has been all the more glorious. Now the good old-fashioned imported implements are' conspicuous by their absence from nearly every farm in the country, and they have been replaced, to the advantage of the farmers, by the manufactures of such colonial firms of implement makers as Messrs. Reid and Gray, P. and D. Duncan, Booth and Macdonald, Andrews and Beaven, and others.
But it is not alone in the production of what 1 may term the more common class of implements—those, I mean, in everyday use—that our colonial manufacturers have beaten the imported article. In the higher branches of the production of agricultural machinery they are rapidly invading, the territory at one time exclusively occupied by the Home firms, and gradually but surely forcing them out of the market. This is the more noticeable in the production by a colonial firm— Messrs. Reid and Gray, of Dunedin—of a reaper and binder which has worthily held its own in the trials made as against those manufactured in America and elsewhere. The impetus which would be given to the local industry of the iron trade by the coming into extensive use amongst our farmers of the colonially-made reapers and binders in place of the imported if is almost impossible to over-estimate; and, what is of still greater importance, a very large sum of money which now annually finds its way from the colonies to America would be retained here and spent within our own borders.
Thus it appears to me that the present position of the second of our staple local industries, though not what it ultimately must become, is yet exceedingly satisfactory from two points of view—(1.) That the growth of the industry in our midst has provided employment for a large class of the community, and must, from the large field for expansion which is
110
PRIZE ESSAYS.
before it, be the means in the future of affording still greater facilities for the employment of labour. (2.) That it encourages the settlement and cultivation of the country by affording the agriculturist possessing only a small capital the opportunity of acquiring the requisite implements, &c., at the cheapest rate, and on the most favourable terms. As to the future of this ven' important industry, there can be no doubt of it being a brigh, and hopeful one.
The action taken by the Government with reference to the more complete opening np and utilization of the vast coal deposits on the west coast of the Middle Island by the improvement of the harbours will have a very great effect upon the future of all local industries connected with the working of metals, and, indeed, all industries of whatever kind, because there is no department of humah industry into which the use of coal as a means of manufacture does not enter either in a direct or indirect degree.
The industries which provide for the utilization of our timber resources properly claim attention next, and it is most satisfactory to be able to record that much progress has been made therein. It-is true that the vandalism which has used for the fire and the commoner purposes of station requirements the finest woods, perhaps, in the world for furniture and ornamental purposes has to a very large extent decimated our forests ; hut the growth amongst us of industries which encourage the use of our local timbers in the construction of the more elaborate and ornamental articles of furniture has put a stop to this practice. The exhibits at the Wellington Exhibition of furniture and woodwork from various parts of the colony, and more especially the comprehensive exhibit of the Dunedin Woodware Company, showed conclusively that our woods are well adapted for the manufacture of the more luxurious articles of household furnishing and adornment, as well as those in daily use. The whole collection of exhibits at Wellington under the head of woodware proved that great progress has been made in this as well as the other departments of local industry which I have passed under review. The importation of furniture from England, which at one time used to be largely carried on, has now all but ceased, the only exception being some stray consignments which now and again find their way to the colony, but which, from the unre-
11l
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES,
Jimncrative nature of the returns, and the advance made by the local industry, will no doubt ere long cease altogether. This industry, from the very nature of things, is bound to make great strides in the future.
With the institution of the direct steam service a new class of addition to our population has come amongst us. The class of assisted or free immigrants, who lauded with just enough money to pay a few weeks’ rent until work was obtained, and in some cases not even possessing that small amount of capital to start with, has disappeared, and instead we are receiving as accessions to our numbers persons who possess a moderate amount of capital, and who are able and willing to expend some portion of it in making their new homes attractive and comfortable. The advent of this class must have the effect of stimulating to a verygreat extent the development of the industry of which I have been speaking, and this development in its turn will re-act on the general prosperity by the increased labour which will be absorbed, and the consequent addition to the spending power of the community.
The leather- and hoot-manufacturing industry, from the great progress made hy it, naturally claims some degree of attention. The development in this industry has been remarkably rapid, and large factories, employing’ an immense number of hands, have sprung up like magic in the various centres of population. The experiments which are in course of progress to test the suitability of some of the barks of our native trees for tanning purposes will, if successful, he the means of introducing a new branch of industry in connection with this one. As to the manufactured article, the display made at the recent Exhibition by Messrs. Lightband, Allan, and Co., the Northern Boot Factory, and others, most emphatically shows that in this as well as in other departments our local industries can well bold their own. The future of the industry under notice cannot but be a most important one, as it supplies all our present wants, and one which grows with the population. If the experiments alluded to are found to answer, then a great reduction in the cost of production of leather will be effected, and a consequent lower price to the purchaser of the manufactured article will no doubt follow. "Whilst on the subject of leather it may be noted that a new industry has been developed recently
112
PRIZE ESSAYS.
in connection therewith. I allude to the production, for thp first time in the colony, at the factory of Messrs. Bowron Bros., of Canterbury, of high - class furniture- and hook - binding leathers. The finish of these is equal to anything that can be imported, and the further development of this branch of manufacture cannot but have a very important bearing on the future prospects of the leather industry as a whole.
I now come to an industry which is of immense importance to the welfare of the community at large, hut in respect to which there is, I regret to say, not so much progress to note as with regard to others. I allude to the mining industry. As I shall have fo refer more particularly to. this question when dealing with the best means of fostering and encouraging the development of our industrial resources, I will not do more than glance at the salient points which present themselves when considering the matter. It seems to me that the mining industry of the colony will, in the future, occupy somewhat the position of the ugly duck in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy story; and that, though we have treated it hitherto with a great deal of neglect, it will yet prove to be the means of largely increasing the prosperity of the colony. Let me here explain that by mining industry I do not mean the mere digging for gold, but rather the development of those vast stores of mineral wealth which are known to exist in various parts of the colony. It is true, as already noticed, that the Government have taken a most important step in the right direction by making such improvements in the coal harbours of the West Coast as will enable the coal deposits there to be utilized to their fullest extent. There can be no doubt that, when these works are completed, the export of coal from New Zealand will he largely increased. As a gas coal there are few to surpass it. This has been conclusively proved by a test recently instituted in comparison with New South Wales coal. The production of gas per ton of the New Zealand coal amounted to 11,928 ft.; whilst the same quantity of New South Wales coal only produced 9,000 ft. As a steam coal also it will compare favourably with the best Welsh. Thus it may be assumed that, so far as the production of coal is concerned, this branch of industry is making fair progress, and has before it an encouraging future. But when we turn our attention to the vast natural resources of the colony, com-
113
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
prising as they do every mineral known to science, in greater abundance than any other country in the world for its area, how little, comparatively speaking, has been done, or is in course of being done, towards their development and bringing into useful manufacture. Some efforts, it is true, have been made ; but nothing of a thorough or complete kind. The result is that, in relation to one of the most important of all industries, we are sending money out of the colony for manufactures, when we have the raw material in abundance within our own borders only awaiting development. The future prospects of this industry are bright in the extreme, if only we initiate and carry out a vigorous and liberal policy of encouraging, by all means in our power, the development of the undoubtedly rich mineral resources of the colony.
Another industry which has grown up amongst us during the past few years is that of the export of frozen meat. The natural growth of our flocks pointed to the inevitable necessity, at no distant date, for the provision of a market beyond our local ones, and the discovery of the process now applied to the exportation of frozen mutton to England supplied the means to that end. The present condition of the industry, it is true, is not so bright as could be wished ; but, though this is so, it has supplied a means for the disposal of our surplus stock which could not have been so profitably supplied by any other industry. Boiling-down or preserving would not have answered the purpose, neither would they have insured such good pecuniary returns to the flockowners of the colony. The future of the industry depends in a large measure on the colonists themselves. If the present method of shipment and distribution in England be continued then the flockowner cannot expect to see any improvement on present prices, nor will the demand increase, as it undoubtedly would if a different means were adopted of dealing with the carcases after they reach their destination. To enable the meat to reach the thousands of consumers who will only be too glad to have the opportunity of purchasing it, shops for the sale of New Zealand meat and that alone will have to be established in the principal centres of population throughout the United Kingdom. These once established, with a kind of co-operative cold stores belonging to the New Zealand shippers, and working in concert with the shops, and the future success of this industry, which is destined
8
114
PRIZE ESSAYS.
to have a most important effect on the welfare of the colony, is assured. In considering this matter it must be remembered that it is one of colonial and not individual interest, because the success or failure of this industry means either, on the one hand, a large addition to our resources, a new market for our surplus produce, and an increase of our staple products, or, on the other, a compulsory reliance upon the two staples of wool- and wheatgrowing—a reliance which the experience of the past two or three years has shown to be without any very sure foundation. Therefore, though perhaps not strictly coming under the head of what are called popularly local industries, the exportation of frozen meat—from the important part it is destined to play in the development of our industrial resources by adding to the general prosperity cannot be overlooked in an essay of this character.
I have dealt specifically with all the industries which seem to me to call for individual mention. Let me now briefly, before touching upon the subject of the best means of fostering the development of them, group together some which I think deserve at any rate a passing notice. One of these which has during the past made great progress, and to a large extent supplanted the imported article, is the candle and soap manufacturing industry. A means of judging of what has been done in regard to this industry was afforded by the exhibit of Messrs. Kitchen and Co. at the recent Exhibition at Wellington. Those who remember the very crude efforts which were made some years ago in the direction of supplying the market with a better class of candles, so as to do away with the necessity for sending so large a- sum of money annually out of the colony for the imported article, will note what a stride has been made, to place the industry in the position in which it now is. The colonial manufacturer is able to turn out an article quite equal to the best, if not superior to some, of the second-class imported brands. All that is wanted to open up for this industry in the future a large and increasing field of operation is the dissipation from the minds of the people the absurd notion that because an article is colonially manufactured it must of necessity be of that description known as “cheap and nasty.” The demand in both branches of this industry is exceedingly great, and once the colonial article can obtain a footing—as from its quality and price it is bound to do
115
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
in the end —we may look for an extensive manufactory of these articles growing up in our midst.
Another industry which has up to the present achieved a very satisfactory position is that of the manufacture of pickles, jams, and preserves. So rapid has been the success attendant upon the establishment in various parts of the colony of local manufactories, that the importation of these articles may be said practically to have ceased. Only one obstacle at present seems to stand in the way of the growth of the industry to a magnitude yet undreamt of, and that is the difficulty of obtaining the raw material in the shape of vegetables and small fruits. It seems almost inconceivable, in a country like this, where every cottager possesses a piece of garden ground of more or less extent, even in close contiguity to our cities, that this difficulty should exist; but the fact remains that it does do so. Still, in spite of this drawback, the industry has made great strides, and the article produced will bear favourable comparison, alike in price and quality, with those imported. The present position of it is this, that it affords remunerative employment to a large number of persons ; it has stimulated the bringing into work of a new industry in the shape of glass-making, and it will also be the means of inculcating on the small-cottager class habits of industry by offering a ready and remunerative market for the produce of their gardens. In the future, when these advantages come to be better understood and more fully recognized and taken advantage of by the people as a whole, there can be no doubt this will be a most important industry, and one which will have a very marked effect upon the mass of the people for good in the direction I have indicated.
The pottery and clay-goods industry is another in which marked progress has been made, and the position of which is now such as to cause a feeling of satisfaction. This result has been aided materially, I may note, by the well-timed liberality of the Minister for Public Works, who has reduced the rates of carriage on the lines between the potteries and the market. Nor alone has the industry achieved a good position as regards the commoner class of goods, such as drain-pipes, flower-pots, &c. ; but in the more ornamental branches a marked degree of excellence is displayed. This is especially notable in the production recently by some of the colonial potteries of high-
116
PRIZE ESSAYS,
class plaques, suitable for artistic flower- or figure-painting of the best description, and of which experts speak highly, as equal to any which could be produced by the artistic potteries at Home. The future of this industry, judging by the progress made in the past, is bound to be one to which we can look forward hopefully, the condition of success being that, in common with others, it receives, alike from the Government and the people, liberal encouragement and support.
Though perhaps not a local industry, yet one which will, I think, be of great value to the colony as a whole, I cannot pass over the apiarian industry, which has been so largely and successfully prosecuted in the northern part of the colony. Though only yet in its infancy, it is affording employment to a number of people, and also making remunerative use of land from which perhaps, except in this way, no return would be received. Though only a small item in the sum of our industrial resources, we cannot afford to despise even the day of small things, and I look forward with very great confidence to the apiaries of New Zealand in the future (though not rivalling the larger industries of woollen or iron manufacture) playing no inconsiderable part in the general prosperity of this young and vigorous nation.
A brief mention of one or two industries which have been recently started and I will close this part of my subject. An industry—the only one in the colonies, so far as I can learn—has been started in the Middle Island, which bids fair to be of very great importance, and which would, had it been longer established here, have claimed far more attention than being left so late in the day : I refer to the manufacture of carpets, which, in a small way, it is true, has recently been started by Mr. N. Mitchell, at Canterbury. Of the present position of this addition to our industrial resources one can say but little, as it has not yet got out of its infancy. It may, however, be noted that the articles produced are of excellent quality, and that the patterns are both handsome and artistic. The demand at present, though fairly remunerative, is not by any means what it will be when the industry gets properly started. There is this about it, that it adds yet another to the list of those industries which will ultimately put an end to the necessity which now appears to exist, in some degree at least, for our sending our wool away in the raw state to be manufactured elsewhere, and returned to
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
117
us at a high price in the shape of the manufactured articles. Further than this, it provides a means for the utilization of a great deal which, without the presence in our midst of this industry, would go to waste. As to its future prospects, those who have seen the effect which the establishment of the carpet industry has had upon certain cities in the Old Country, and the prosperity which has grown out of this trade alone in the localities where the production is carried on, will at once agree that, when it has passed through its present chrysalis stage, its future ought to be fraught with very important results to the colony as a whole. Another small industry, which, however, promises to enlarge at no distant date into an important branch of manufacture, is the brushware industry. This is now pretty extensively carried on both in the northern and southern portions of the colony, and, though not much has yet been done, there are hopes for it in the future. The latest phase of the development of our local resources is the project of Mr. Noble, of Timaru, to utilize wheat-straw for the manufacture of wrapping paper. A very good sample of tough paper has been produced, and, if it can be carried on at a reasonable cost, there should be a good market for the products of the factory when started. I can only refer by name to the older industries, such as the Auckland Tobacco Company, the various rope and twine manufactories, the carriage factories, &c. So that in nearly all departments of human industry our local manufacturers have established factories, &c.; and all that is needed to insure a successful future for them is the practical support both of the Government and the people of the colony as a whole.
I now come to what I consider the most important branch of the subject under consideration—namely, “ The best means of fostering the development of the industrial resources of New Zealand.” I think the methods by which we can best achieve this end may be placed under three heads—(l) The development, by means of roads, &c., of the large mineral resources of the colony; (2) the encouragement of local industries and productions by the imposition of such import duties on all those articles which can be manufactured in the colony as will afford aid to the local producers, and by a liberal application of the system of bonus for the starting of new industries ; and (3) the education of the people by the encouragement of the formation
118
PRIZE ESSAYS.
of industrial associations in various parts of the colony, and the adoption of a liberal and generous policy by the Government towards them, so as to inculcate the necessity of a more extensive use by the people of the products of the colony in all branches of human industry.
Dealing with the first of the three methods which I have indicated, the paramount importance of the vast deposits of mineral wealth which are known to exist in these Islands with regard to our local industries will at once be admitted. We possess all the metals used in manufactures within our own borders, and in abundance ; but we have done little or nothing towards their development. Boards have been made and large sums of money expended in opening-up country for purely agricultural or pastoral purposes- —both very desirable adjuncts to the settlement and development of the country; but where have we done anything practical towards bringing the vast stores of mineral wealth we possess nearer to the centres of population? Except in the one instance of the construction of harbours on the west coast of the Middle Island, little or nothing has been done. We have deposits of copper, of ironstone, and other valuable minerals lying practically untouched and undeveloped —a magnificent industry starving for the expenditure of a few thousand pounds in opening-up the country and making the regions where the minerals are known to exist accessible. Yet there is scarcely one of our local industries to which I have referred in the first part of this essay but would be benefited by the more thorough development of our mineral resources. In the one article of coal alone the benefit which would accrue to all industries from an increased supply being able to he obtained at a lower rate can scarcely be estimated. And so with reference to the other minerals which we possess. Their development would naturally lead to the establishment of manufactures for the conversion of the raw ore into the article of commerce. Factories would spring up on all sides, employing labour and, above all, turning to profitable use what is now lying useless in the earth. Other and kindred industries would be stimulated by the production locally of machinery and partially manufactured articles for ultimate conversion into the thousand forms used in trade, and thus a most important factor in the work of fostering and developing our industrial resources would be sup-
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES
146
plied which is now all hut totally absent. I say “all but totally absent,” because some steps have been taken in the direction of the development of our coal industries.
What would result with regard to other minerals were a policy of development extended to them may be gathered by the consideration of the enormous impetus which the only partiallycompleted works on the West Coast have given to the coal trade —an impetus which will be as nothing compared with what will result when the full extent of the scheme of harbour improvement is carried into effect. Even now we are enabled to go into the Australasian market and not only compete with the Newcastle coal, hut realize an increased price per ton when compared therewith. As yet we have but a superficial knowledge of our mineral wealth; but that is sufficient to afford a very good basis for the belief that in its practical development exists one of the principal means of success in the fostering and encouragement of our industrial resources. We have confined our attention in the past too much to the development of the two industries of wooland wheat-growing. Experience has bitterly taught us that we cannot rely on these alone for the prosperity or future greatness of our community, because it is an admitted fact that the nations achieving the greatest amount of success in the world’s history have been those in which manufactures have held the premier position. No country devoted exclusively to the production of wool or of cereals has ever taken a high position among its fellows. With this as our guide, and remembering how intimately and indissolubly the interests and advancement of our local industries are bound up and associated with the development of our mineral resources, this latter, it seems to me, should be the main plank in the platform of any policy having for its object not alone the fostering of those industries which at present exist in our midst, but the encouragement of the foundation of new ones.
Next in importance to the development of our mineral resources as a method of encouraging and fostering local industries comes that which I have indicated under the second head. That is the imposition of duties on all articles that can be manufactured in the colony. This, I take it, would-be found to be a very important means of encouragement to the local manufactures, enabling them to get over that period of their
PRIZE ESSAYS.
147
existence during which, like children, they require a certain amount of nursing, until they can run alone. The imposition of duties for the encouragement of local manufactures results in no injustice to the community, whilst it confers great benefits in the direction of encouraging their use by the people, enabling employment to be given to a large portion of our population, and causing money which would otherwise go out of the colony to be retained and spent here. Under present circumstances the expansion and progress of our local industries is to a large extent retarded from the fact that the majority of the mercantile firms are agents for consignments of goods the sale of which clashes with that of the local product. If, however, import duties were imposed sufficient to keep the those consignments, and to give the local industries the benefit of a reasonable handicap, a very great incentive to their progress would be supplied, and the fostering and encouragement in the people of self-reliance on our own powers of production would be practically brought into active operation.
Another important method of stimulating local enterprise in the matter of developing onr industrial resources is by means of bonuses offered by the Government for the production of a certain quantity of any locally-manufactured article. Our experience in the past shows that the policy of offering bonuses is a wise and prudent one, and calculated to prove of benefit to the community as a whole. I need hardly point to the example of the Kaiapoi Woollen Factory as an example of this. The bonus comes at the most critical portion of the history of an industry, just when capital for the further development and perfecting of it is most urgently needed, and many of our flourishing industries would not to-day be in existence were it not for the timely assistance thus afforded. The expenditure in the past of a few thousands of pounds from the public purse has been the means of establishing upon a firm basis in our midst industries which have proved of inestimable benefit to the whole colony, and therefore I cannot but regard the system of offering bonuses by the Government in aid of local industries as most valuable in the direction of their fostering and encouragement.
In carrying out this policy it is, however, necessary that a fair amount of liberality should form an essential part of it. Whilst care is taken that the projectors of the local industry
121
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
shall amply prove that it has been established up to such a point that there is a reasonable chance of its becoming permanent, they should not be hampered with too many conditions, which, when fulfilled, in many instances do not aid in the direction I have indicated. What I take to be the duty of the Government in this matter is, to take such precautions as will prevent an industry being taken up merely as a speculation, to -secure the bonus offered. Having, in the interests of the public, provided against this, it then becomes their duty to assist so far as is possible by libreal encouragement, and reasonable concessions, if necessary, in the development of all new methods for the utilization of our industrial resources by aiding them at the start. As a means, therefore, to this end I regard the granting of bonuses by the Government, on the most liberal terms consistent with safety to the public purse, as being very valuable.
I now come to the third and last branch into which I have divided this portion of the essay. There can be no doubt whatever that the formatiou of industrial associations in our cities and towns exercises a great influence for good in the direction of fostering the development of the industrial resources of the colony. It is to them that the projector looks for assistance to bring his particular industry under the notice of the public, and it is to them that he looks for advice. By means of papers on various subjects, the holding of exhibitions, and, above all, by the collecting together, as has been done in Christchurch, the nucleus of a permanent exhibition of industrial products, these associations do a large amount of good in the direction of educating the people as to the extent and variety of our industrial resources. The ignorance of the great bulk of the people as to what we really can do for ourselves in the matter of local productions is the great stumblingblock in the way of the fuller progress of the local industries already established amongst us, and the growth of others yet to be projected.
I venture to say that to ninety-nine out of every hundred visitors to the Exhibition at Wellington the display of colonial products came upon them as an utter surprise, and that they had no idea that half the articles there exhibited could be and were being produced in the colony. It is this ignorance, coupled with the unreasoning and unaccountable prejudice which exists amongst the great bulk of the people with regard to anything
122
PRIZE ESSAYS.
colonially manufactured, which prevents our local industries attaining that perfection and magnitude which it is necessary they should attain to enable them to perform the work of placing New Zealand in a high position amongst the manufacturing nations of the world. We want our people to become thoroughly imbued with the idea that there is no need whatever to go outside our own borders for anything they may need to eat, drink, wear, or use. Anything that will accomplish this will be doing a great work in the direction of fostering the development of our industrial resources. And I claim for the industrial associations of the colony and all kindred organizations that they are to the best of their ability endeavouring to do this. But their efforts are to a great extent cribbed, cabined, and confined from the fact that they are expected to do in a large degree what is in reality a national work out of their own private resources. They are called upon to devote not only their time but their money also to accomplishing that w r hich, if not actually undertaken by the Government as one of its departments, should at any rate receive from it a liberal and generous assistance. Therefore it is that I say one of the most effectual methods in which the development of our industrial resources can be stimulated and aided is by assisting those industrial associations now in existence so as to largely extend the sphere of their usefulness, and also to encourage the formation of similar associations where they do not at present exist.
The Government here thought it necessary to foster and promote the agricultural industry amongst us by the formation of a special department. How much more important, I would venture to point out, is the development of our industrial resources, the perfection of which can alone render New Zealand great and prosperous ? It is no doubt a very good thing to educate the people to a knowledge of sound farming; hut it is infinitely more important, in view of the hearing upon our future prosperity, that they should he educated to a fuller knowledge of the vast stores of wealth and materials for progress which lie at present undeveloped, in the shape of new industries which might he started and mineral resources to be utilized.
If we do not form a department for the industries of the colony similar to that for agriculture—and I see no reason why we should not —then the next best thing is to make the in-
NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRIES.
123
dustrial associations of the colony as useful as possible in the direction I have indicated. By grants in aid of buildings which may he used for the permanent exhibition of our products, by placing in the hands of these associations bonuses for the development of new industries, and hy adopting towards industries already established a liberal policy as regards rates of carriage from the factories or mines to the centres of population, I think a great step will he taken in the direction of fostering the development of our industrial resources, upon which in the future so much will depend. Everything that is now occurring around us, as well as the past history of other countries, teaches us one great lesson—namely, that a country, to he truly great, and to be able to support a happy, prosperous, and increasing population, must be a manufacturing country, and not a cerealor wool-producing one only. For manufactures we should always have an increasing local market, as well as a foreign trade. That we can go outside our own boundaries with our manufactured products has been proved hy the tweeds, &c., of the Kaiapoi Woollen Factory and the other factories of the colony finding a ready market elsewhere than in New Zealand itself. So it might be with other products of our local manufactories, if their development be stimulated by a liberal policy being adopted towards them hy the Government, and the practical assistance of the people as a whole. If this he done we shall then see New Zealand taking that position to which her great natural advantages and vast resources entitle her as the greatest manufacturing nation of the Southern Hemisphere.
By Authority : George Didsbcey, Government Printer, Wellington.— lBB6.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/books/ALMA1886-9917504573502836-Prize-essays-on-the-industries-o
Bibliographic details
APA: (1886). Prize essays on the industries of New Zealand. Govt. Printer.
Chicago: Prize essays on the industries of New Zealand. Wellington, N.Z.: Govt. Printer, 1886.
MLA: Prize essays on the industries of New Zealand. Govt. Printer, 1886.
Word Count
45,588
Prize essays on the industries of New Zealand. Govt. Printer, Wellington, N.Z., 1886
Using This Item
Out of copyright (New Zealand)
To the best of the National Library of New Zealand’s knowledge, under New Zealand law, copyright in this book has expired.
You can copy this item, share it, and post it on a blog or website. It can be modified, remixed and built upon. It can be used commercially. If reproducing this item, it is helpful to include the source.
For further information please refer to the Copyright guide.