The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening news, Morning News, and Echo. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1888.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 259, 2 November 1888, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening news, Morning News, and Echo.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1888.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, ___l the good thct wo can do.

Sir Robert Stout is a shrewd, observant man, and one possessing large colonial experience. His observations during an extended trip to Melbourne possess, therefore, a considerable amount of interest for the people of New Zealand, and especially for that class who have come to look upon Victoria as an earthly paradise, conjuring up pictures of its prosperity which owe their charm chiefly to distance. Sir Robert's opinions in favour of New Zealand, when comparing our prospects with those of the premier colony, moreover, are perhaps the more likely to command attention outside the colony, because he does not take so pessimistic a view of the commercial outlook in the Victorian metropolis as that which has been adopted by most men who have expressed an opinion regarding the extraordinary absorption of wealth in land speculation. Dealing with this matter in a recent interview with a representative of the Otago " Daily Times," he said:

I see no reason to think there will be any sudden collapse of the prosperity in Melbourne. No doubt values of land will have to come down. In many places too high a value has been placed on the land, and there will not be as many land sales in the future as there have been in the past. Up to the time I left there had been land sales amounting to £14,000,000 this year. Of course this change of properties cannot continue ; but Melbourne is an exceedingly wealthy place. There are probably more wealtliy mon in Melbourne than in any other city of its size. Building is going on rapidly, and capital is being laid out, Ido not expect any sudden collapse of prosperity in Melbourne, though 1 expect the land values outside the milo of Melbourne will fall. 1 doubt, however, if in the centre of [Melbourne, in the principal business streets, the land will fall in value. Melbourne, in my opinion, is daily becoming, if not the London, the Paris oi Australasia, and will always keep its city lands high in value.

We can hardly believe that even lands within the mile radius will pay tsvo per cent, upon the vast sums which, in many instances, have been paid for them, even if the seven and eight-storey buildings which are being piled upon them should find permanent tenants. But that the rales paid for lands from eight to ten miles from Melbourne cannot be sustained seems to be beyond all doubt. At a sale recently quoted in our columns, a paddock about four miles from Melbourne, on the line to Sydney, was cut up into allotments about 6oit by noft, and realised an average of about per foot. If this rate is to determine the cost of artisans' dwellings, it is manifest that rents in Melbourne, which are now oppressively high, will continue to be so. Under present conditions, with the " boom " at its height, Sir Robert Stout found the New Zealanders he met unanimous in their desire to return to this colony. He says :

I do not think that as a rule the wages are higher in Victoria than in New Zealand, and if you consider tho drawbacks to bo met with there in high rents and in other ways, you will see that the working classes in New Zealand are as well off aa those in Victoria. Of course, that assumes that there i 3 work for them. I only met one New Zealander—and I met hundreds from all parts of the colony—who did nob wish to be hack again here, and with that exception all I met said that as soon as tlioy could get work in New Zealand, or made money, they would return. Especially was that the case with those from Otago and Southland, and they all preferred the New Zealand climate.

Sir Robert Stout considers the aggregation of population in huge cities an inevitable effect of the construction of railways :

What is happening in Victoria, he says, is happening all over the world; tho business is being concentrated. That is one of the effects of railways. The village blacksmith and bootmaker havo gone, to tho city, and are working in factories, and Melbourne is supplying the farmers. Tho whole tradeis beingforced into the factories,and thed_3tributiontakesplace by parcels delivery and so on in such a way as to a large extent destroy tho necessity for country towns. In this way Melbourne may be built up at the expense of tho country, bub I do nob think this extends to the productiveness, and it is in no way exceptional. No doubt a problem for the future is whether this concentration of manufacturing enterprise and commercial distribution in largo cities is going to bo of benefit to tho raco or not. These causes are operating in New South Wales, aud, in fact, all over the world, in countries so dissimilar from these as Norway. The fact is, tho concentration of town life has become more intense because of the railways, and of the large factory and company system. I found, however, in Victoria that a great improvement was taking place with regard to tho price of country lands, and that the people were trying to increase the productiveness of tho land ,in various ways. I believe that the Victorian wheat will take tho premier position in the Exhibition.

That Melbourne has profited by protection, he had no doubt whatever:

lb encouraged manufacturers to lay out capital in Victoria, and thus to keep the population thero when there had sob in an exodus of population from the colony. lb gave to tho Victorian manufacturers a start which they have kept, and it tended to the accumulation of capital in Melbourne, though I believe it has had its drawbacks in many ways. In some instances it may have unduly forced manufactures that wera not suitable for the colony, and it may have led to the concentration in factory life of people who would have been better employed in the country districts. Victoria has got a start through its protective policy, and the question for the other

colonies will soon be—ls Victoria to be the only manufacturing colony, the other colonies being merely engaged in actual sheep and grain raising ; or are they also to share in the manufacturing industries ?

Unlike the Chairman of the Canter» bury Industrial Association, Sir Robert Stout believes that there is little hope of reciprocity, unless preceded by some form of federation, because it will be impossible to reconcile conflicting interests so far as to determine which articles should be made subject to intercolonial free trade: " The reciprocity agreement between Tasmania and Victoria failed because the Victorian farmers would not support it; they would not allow the produce of Northern Tasmania to go in free of duty, and of course they are unlikely to give the produce of New Zealand any preference." Altogether, Sir Robert Stout takes a very favourable view of the condition and prospects of Victoria, but he thinks none the less of New Zealand, the chief obstacle to our prosperity, in his opinion, being, indeed, the feeling of despondency which pervades the country • but for that feeling finding such general expression through the press, he believes that not thousands, but millions of money would have come into this colony for investment.