The Press. THURSDAY, AUGUST 30, 1866.

Press, Volume X, Issue 1190, 30 August 1866, Page 2

The Press. THURSDAY, AUGUST 30, 1866.

We published a letter the other day urging the establishment in Canterbury of various .kinds of manufactures, and attributing the depression which has for so long a time prevpiled in this province to the amount of capital withdrawn from it for the purchase of I articles which ought to bo either ob-

tamed or manufactured here. Among the former the writer specified coal, hops, and tobacco; among the latter, woollen clothing, leather, beet root sugar, and spirits. This demand for local manufactures is one that frequently makes itßelf heard in this as in other colonies, and, if we remember rightly, it even found a place in the 'election speeches of the Superintendent as indicating a want that should be gratified during his time of office. The whole question however lies in a nutshell —it is simply a matter of cost. If it costs more to manufacture any article in Canterbury than to import it from abroad, it is clear enough that to continue producing that article is merely throwing away so much money; in other words, it is reducing the capital of the province by the difference in the respective prices of the home-made and imported goods. For instance, our correspondent " B " suggests that " coal, should be brought down from Malvern by a traction engine and sold at a price that would ensure its consumpton." Is that possible ? If it is—supposing the quality of the coal to be equal to imported—the province would be the gainer by its being done. But it is questionable whether, taking into consideration the cost of the machine and working expenses, the price of the coal delivered in Christchurch would not be greater than that of coal imported from Australia or England; in which case the longer the operation was carried on the greater would be the loss, and the more would the capital of the province be sunk, or " drained," to no purpose It is a mistake to suppose that a country is necessarily the worse off, to whatever extent the commonest articles (such as boots and shoes, and other things mentioned by " B.") are imported instead of being manufactured at home. The real question is, do the population produce goods of some other kind in excess of their own requirements to an equal value ? If they do, the receipts for the goods so produced balance the payments for the goods imported, and nothing obviously would be gained by transferring labor so profitably engaged to any other employment. Even supposing the result to be a decrease in the money expended in imports, which for other reasons is very improbable, there would be a corresponding decrease in the money received for exports. Nor can trade be arbitrarily tied down to any locality, in opposition to the natural laws which guide its operations. If a country has natural facilities for a particular branch of commerce, it is certain to spring up there, and in the long run to outstrip all rivals and draw more and more to itself the business of the whole world. England owes her position as a manufacturing country to the extent and accessibility of her coalfields, and it may observed that the seats of manufacturing industry, both in the north and south, are coincident with the principal coalfields. There they have settled and thrived, till places which fifty years ago were puny villages have grown under their expansive influence into large and wealthy cities. These parts of England are the special homes of manufactures, and the whole population is more or less devoted to them. But here we come to a cause which must render any new country dependent upon England for manufactured goods—the want of skilled labor and the high rate of wages. No business can long be carried on of which the expenses are greater than the profits, or which is systematically undersold by a competitor; and the manufacturers of England have such advantages in their large staff of workmen, comprising almost the entire population of several counties, their extensive and well organised machinery, their experience in the most effective methods of working, and their command of all the resources science is ever on the watch to supply, that they cannot fail to command the market against any country which enters into competition on less favorable terms. New Zealand must be content to exchange agricultural produce, wool and gola for the productions of Lancashire looms and West Indian plantations. The time for manufactures has not yet arrived, though there can be little doubt that it will come, and that the superiority of the coal formations in these islands over those in the neighbouring colonies, will give them something of the advantage England has enjoyed over the manufacturing countries of the Continent. We have not alluded to the possibility of fostering local manufactures by imposing a duty on imported goods because the provinces have no powe r to interfere in the Customs, and also because we cannot conceive that the public are likely to throw aside the established doctrines of free trade for the exploded fallacies of protection. Nothing is clearer than that if cm article can be imported at leas cost than it can be manufactured, but the imported article is kept out of the market by a heavy duty, every pur-

chase of the other involves a waste of money ; or, as we said above, abstracts from the capital of the country the difference in price between the free imported and protectel goods. But if we cannot agree with "B " about the manufactures, in the other branch of his subject we are more disposed to concur. "We should like to see a greater inclination in Canterbury to attempt what are called in | Victoria " novel industries," especially 'in agriculture. Farmers here either simply crop their land till it can bear no longer and then lay it down to grass (it is a prevalent mistake that any land does for grass) or if they know their business too well for that, they still never go a step beyond the routine they have been accustomed to in the old country. The English farmer is a most thorough going Tory, and his disposition does not seem to change with his abode. A Taukee settler manages things very differently, and a visit to a Californian farm might give some useful hints to colonial agriculturists. He does not confine himself

to the accustomed cereals, but with characteristic love of experiment lays out a plot of anything indigenous to the locality or that strikes him as suitable to the climate or soil. Thus he does not hang everything on one string, and is not ruined by the failure or over abundance of any one crop, while now and then a particularly successful experiment brings in a profit which no ordinary crop would have yielded. These men are acclimatisers, in a small but very practical way, and it would be well if their example were more generally followed. There are not a few plants the growth of which might be attempted with every probability of success, amongst others, the hop, flax, and tobacco. The cultivation of these, if they took rank among the staple products of the soil, would absorb a good deal of hitherto unemployed labor, and add considerably to the agricultural resources of the province.