THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9815, 26 August 1897, Page 6

THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.

PROGRESS IN TARANAKI.

(Bγ Telegraph.)

(FROM OUli SPECIAL COBRESrONDEKT.) WELLINGTON, Autjust 25. I had some conversation with the member for Hawera, Mr Maguire, this morning, the details*of which might be interesting to your readers. He is in Wellington at present upon business connected with the dairy industry in Taranaki and the northern parts of this provincial district. He gives a most encouraging account of the progress of the dairy industry in his district. He says that the output of butter and cheese for the present year will be very much greater than that of any previous year, possibly twice as great. The people in the dairy factories, and the farmers who supply them with milk, are hopeful of even greater results from year to year. The industry has raised the price of milk in some places from 2£d to 4<i a quart. The amount of benefit it confers upon a district only a farmer or dairyman can adequately appreciate. The general public, he says, has very little conception of the extent and value of the industry. There is no kind of enterprise in the colony which promises such a great reward to the industrious and intelligent farmer ; but, he adds, several of the districts are heavily weighted ia other respects. Many of the men who have been sent by the Government on to the land as settlers are not settlers, and are not likely to become settlers in any legitimate sense of the word. In the first place, they have not sufficient land nor sufficient means to make a decent living out of it. A hundred acres is not enough. They are, he affirms, working a dead horse from the time they go upon the land until they leave it. Men, he says, are sent in for bush felling. They are paid 30s an acre. That is 10s more than is paid to an ordinary contractor. Grass seed is given to them, and they are paid an extra price for sowing it. But they do not become permanent settlere. They only stay on the land as long as it suits them. They have no capital, aud, as a rule, they can make no permanent improvement. If due care had been exercised they could have been placed in such a position that they would get employment from, well-to-do farmers to the permanent advantage of both. As the area of land is not sufficient, and employment cannot be had to help the new settler in overcoming the difficulties of his first efforts, he looks forward to an escape from the place as the only relief available. So, in course of time, he leaves the land and abandons the idea of establishing a home upon it. All the old and successful settlers, he maintains, are anxious that suitable settlers should come into new districts, but districts aye handicapped by incompetent or unsuitable settlement. Every new failure ie an additional burthen. Nevertheless (Mr Maguire says) the country is going ahead. Everything in his neighbourhood has a rosy aspect. Every new industry helps all round, if it only gets fair play from those who have the power, if they have the will, to give something like substantial encouragement.