The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1898. TEN YEARS' PROGRESS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 206, 1 September 1898, Page 4

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

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1898. TEN YEARS' PROGRESS.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the vrons that ncsrls resistance, For the future in the distance, Anil the gecti that vo can do.

One of the most instructive papers laid before Parliament this session is a rciuin shewing by comparative statistics the progress made by New Zealand during the past ten years. J..y the aic; of this document one is enabled to see at a glance how rapidly ihe colony has grown in population, and trade, and.how much has besn accomplished in the development of tha agricultural a.nd pastoral resources of the country. The picture thus presented is a very encouraging one, and furnishes a most effective answer to the jeremiads of pessimists here ancl abroad. It also affords a clue to the satisfactory results revealed in the Budgets of the Colonial Treasurer for whose succession of surpluses during the period under review, no parallel can be found in the previous history of the colony.

The population of New Zealand has increased in ten years 125,695, or^, 20.83 per cent; its imports (excluding specie) in 1597 were £1,929,920 larger than in 1887, or 31.8,2 per cent; and its exports, the produce of the colony, £3,045,156 greater, or 46.48 per cent. The wool export exhibits immense expansion, the quantity last year being 47,010,735 lbs greater and the value £1,222,070 more than in 1887; the value of wool per pound, however, shews a decline, the percentage of increase in weight being 52.92 and in value only 33.79. The frozen meat export has increased from 402,107 cwt, to 1,407,921 cwt., representing an increase of 250.14 per cent; the increase in value was-243.5S per cent, shewing a slightdecline in the average price. The tallow exported shews an increase of 155.49 cwt, or 100.49 per cent; the value, however, was only 76.57 greater, another result, of downward prices. Butter on the other hand, shews increases both in quantity and price, the result of the general adoption of the factory system' and the enforcement of official grading. The increase in quantity was 81,954 lbs, or 481.75 per cent, in value £347,684, or 033.06 per cent. Cheese, however, shews a heavy fall in prices, the quantity exported last year being 224.86 per cent greater than in ISS7, but the value only 175.50 per cent more. There are now nearly twenty million sheep, twelve hundred thousand cattle, and a quarter of a million horses in the colony, representing respectively increases of 15.86, 41.69, and 34.93 per cent. The occupied holdings have increased 22,419 or 61.45 per cent, and the area of land in cultivation, including sown grasses, is now 11,483,127 acres, or 57.09 per cent more than it was ten years ago. The pastoral holdings embrace thirty three million acres, an increase of 19.02 -per cent.

When we look in oilier directions the results are quite as marked. Last •year the colony exported 251,045 ozs. of gold, or 33.00 per cent more than hi ISB7. The output of coal was 840,713 tons, valued at £420,350, an increase of fifty per cent in quantity aiid value. There is evidence of material prosperity in the savings of the people deposited in the Post-office and Trustee Savings Banks, which on the 31st of December last amounted to the enormous total of £5,520,080, or 129.26 per "cent more than in 18S7, wliile there was on deposit in the banks of issue (year's average) £14,290,512, an increaseof £3,258,898, or 29.54 per cent more than in ISS7, so much for the i.cry about capital being frightened away from the country. The policies in the Government Life Insurance Department have increased 10,735- in number and £2,720,000 in value. There are now 2,055 miles of Government railways open for traffic, an increase of 302 miles in ten years, or 17.23 per cent, while the receipts have increased 38.31 .per cent, Still greater increases are observable in the business of the post and telegraph offices. We think that everyone, who studies these returns will recognjse in them the elements of a growing prosperity, resting upon the solid basis of industry systematically applied to a, country abundantly endowed 'by Nature.