PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE OCCUPATIONS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 98, 20 January 1844, Page 388

PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE OCCUPATIONS.

We have read with much pleasure the letter of a correspondent in the Sydney Herald of December 8. His remarks are so just, and many of them so strictly applicable to these islands, that we have not hesitated to extract largely. Speaking of the past state of the country, he says :—: —

"We pause not, I say, to reflect that unless the increase of capital kept pace with that of labour, and unless that capital were judiciously employed and rendered productive it would be wasted — and the labouring population to which that capital ought to have afforded employment and the means of comfortable subsistence, reauced to pauperism. The price of wool was so high in the English market, that the flockmaster could profitably increase the number of his sheep for the sake of the wool alone, without reference to the demand for mutton here; and, as the number of horned cattle had not become more than proportionate to the population, fat bullocks realized such prices in our colonial markets as rendered the grazier independent. We increased therefore both our sheep and our cattle to so injudicious an extent, that, for the sustenance of only 156,000 men, women, and children, we possess at this moment six millions of sheep and eight hundred thousand horned cattle I The price of wool at home having suffered a redaction of 50 per cent., our flockmasters are obliged to look to the butcher for an income, and the result is what might be expected from the disproportion existing between the quantity of meat and the number of consumers in the country. The price of beef and mutton in the Sydney market is not sufficient to pay for the expense of herding cattle and shepherding sheep, setting aside rent and profit altogether, and we find too late that our occupation has been • unproductive ' and our capital wasted." Here follows the proposed remedy :—: — " We must make (he labour we possess productive by abandoning unproductive occupations. By

reducing .the number of our sheep to three millions, and of our cattle to four hundred thousand, we can proportion ♦he supply of fresh meat to the demands of our population, and thereby enable our graziers, not certainly to make fortunes, but to "support their families respectably. And then we shall be able earnestly to apply our minds to the difficult task before us, that of producing other exportable articles. Nearly thirty years of patient toil and vigilant care were requisite to obtain a name for Australian wool. We cannot expect in less than twenty years to derive a saleable and therefore a valuable export from the olive, the vine, and the phormium tenax, — not to mention other products of the earth to which our soil and climate are favourable. As the price of wool is not likely again to tempt us to breed sheep for the sake of the wool alone, the necessity hitherto pleaded for a mere liandful of British subjects being scattered over such an immense tract of country no longer exists. Supposing the average number of sheep kept by each settler to be, in future, two thousand, 3,000,000 of sheep would be in the hands of 1,500 settlers; 6,000,000 (the present number) in the hands of 3,000 settlers — men of probity and intelligence, constituting a valuable yeomanry. Each proprietor having thus a moderate number, not only would they be kept more economically, but more attention would be paid to the improvement of the fleece, and the preparing of it for the English market. Instead of squatters living in slab and bark huts beyond the boundaries, and in their dwellings and mode of life resembling as little as possible English gentlemen, we should have respectable settlerf, uniting advantageously both grazing and agriculture to a limited extent — improving their lands, and adding every year to their own comforts, as well as to the resources of the colony. But let the truth be told— New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, South Australia, and New Zealand, are not— if indeed any new colonies are — fields for the capitalists of the mother country to make fortunes in; extreme caution, unvarying frugality, an unwillingness to speculate, must be the characteristics of a successful settler in any one of these colonies. In the interior of this country he must be satisfied with what Sir Walter Scott describes the life of a border firmer to have been somewhat more than a cencury ago. He must almost confine his wants to what his own land will yield. lam aware that this picture will tempt few educated gentlemen to emigrate from Great Britain, unless they have families to provide for, little interest, and less fortune. But for its truth I appeal to the cry of disappointment, distress, and helplessness, heard in every one of the British colonies in this hemisphere. If, however, men are to be found in this age of over-specula-tion, luxury, and false refinement, who will go forth to our colonies with the sentiments, the tastes, and the moderate expectations of the Englishmen of a former sera, to whom our American brethren are indebted for all that is valuable in the society or the institutions of the United States, we may promise them contentment and success. But such characters are not very numerous in times to which the strong language of Livy may perhaps without injustice be applied: — Nuper divitim avaritiam, et abundantes voluptates desiderium, per luocum atque libidinem pereundi perdendigue omnia, invescere."

The latest English paper we have seen is of the 30th August, although we have been told that some of a later date are in the settlement. Parliament was prorogued on the 24th ; and we refer our readers to the comments of the Examiner and the Times, which will be found in another column, for information as to the value of its labours. The matters which appeared to be exciting the greatest interest in England were an expected visit of the Queen to the King of the French, at Havre, during a pleasure trip which her Majesty was taking in the Channel ; the proceedings of Mr. O'Connell in Ireland ; the Welsh disturbances ; and Father Mathew's temperance mission in London.

About three months since a large number of persons left Auckland or the Bay of Islands in a vessel named the Brigand, for the purpose of settling on one of the islands in the South Pacific. We now learn that whilst on the coast of New Caledonia, or some adjacent island, they imprudently suffered a number of natives to visit them on board, who simultaneously attacked the Europeans and endeavoured to gain possession of the vessel. After a hard struggle the natives were repulsed, but not until seventeen of the passengers and crew were killed. The vessel has since returned to Sydney.