OUR COLONIAL PROSPECTS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 165, 10 June 1884, Page 2

OUR COLONIAL PROSPECTS.

Mb James Sir and, of Otago, takes a hopeful outlook of die prospects of the agricultural interest m this colony. At the Win ox banquet m Dunedin he asserted that m wheat-growing we could compete against the world. It cost, he said, the Home fanner more for manure than it cost the farmer here to transport his grain to the London market. That sounds all very well, (says a Southern exchange,) but if New Zealand farmers do not spend more for manure, m a few more years they may not have any wheat to send to London. They grew magnificent wheat m Tasmania once, an<l grow it year after year, and now there are thonsmds of acres so thoioughly sick that for a longtime they have grown nothing but sorrel. Mr &TIA.TSD scouted the idea of farmers iv India and America growing cereals cheaper than they can be grown here. Our contemporary goes on to remark: — We are glad that Mr Shvnd is so enthusiastic, and could wish that all farmers were equally so ; but at the same time we cannot help thinking that the period for exporting grain to the other side of the world profitably has about gone by. In Great Britain we notice that farmers are regaining heart, and cultivating thousands of acres which have lain dormant for years; tho immense yields of India, where cultivation is so easy, and labor so cheap, will seriously affect us. and recent intelligence from the Soudan gives rise to grave apprehension thac competition from that region will make our market sill more limited. We must be more self-re-liant ; develop our own resources, set industries agoing from one end of the land to tho other, attract an industrial population to consume our own produce, for all appearances serve to indicate that unless we have other resources to depend upon than the mere fruits of the earth, the coun try will soon go to the wall.