THE WAIKATO ELECTION AND A NEW INDUSTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 245, 15 October 1891, Page 2

THE WAIKATO ELECTION AND A NEW INDUSTRY.

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—There is a suggestion in Mr Murray's well-thought-out address ab Huntly which should nob be lost sight of _by farmers, miners and merchants. Particularly now, when the country has loss his services in Parliament through the intervention of an oufcbider who threw up his truet and raised a " thunder-storm on a duck pond " to make himself of importance, and now he vents his pernicious parvibudo, private spleon«and paltry party politics on hie betters, and has managed to throw out a man he was never tit to hold a candle to, because he would not'be tied to party, bub rather wished to bring parties together by fair and just conceptions, too liberal for autocratic ideas and pig-headed ooe-groovo notions. But what 1 wanted to call attontion to is the necessity of opening , up a coal trade with South America, as indicated in Mr Murray's address, and getting nitrato of soda in return. The importance of this trade must bo apparent when we consider there must ba ab the least five hundred thousand of pounds' worth of it or ita equivalent sent out of the countty every year in the shape of frozen meat, wool, whoafc, cheese, etc., which mu3t be replaced in the soil in order to keep up its fertility. If farmers doubt bhe importance of this salt let them try a cwb. on an acre of grass, green crop or grain. It must be sown in showery weather, when'they will find it will give a return of 50 or 100 per cent, on the money expended. It was greatly uaed in the Old Country, where it cost about £30 a ton. It can bo delivered here* under £10, so let us use it, and convert it iuto frozen meat and wheat and send ib away in the manufactured state, and let New Zealand supply Australia and the Islands with ib in the crude state. The potentiality of this industry alone is enough to lift the clouds of depression from the country. New Zealand could use 100,000 tons yearly if ib can be sold under £10 a ton, and bo turn our coal into gold.—l am, etc., Fakmek.