North Auckland Age. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED “The Mangonui County Times” and “The Bay of Islands Times.” MONDAY, JULY 6, 1908. The Progress of the North.

Northland Age, Volume IV, Issue 46, 6 July 1908, Page 4

North Auckland Age. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED “The Mangonui County Times” and “The Bay of Islands Times.”

MONDAY, JULY 6, 1908. The Progress of the North.

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To those who have watched the progress of the North during the past ten years must come the inevitable question : Whence the advancement ? It would be almost impossible to point to any marked stride forward and the man who has, month by month, plodded his weary way through life in the Bay of Islands electorate

would have to acknowledge that the progress had been imperceptible to those whom it moj.t affected and that the difference between the prosperity of to-day and that of ten years back could only be compared after an enforced effort at delineation of the picture of that bygone time. That the North has advanced cannot be gainsaid and this is the more marvellous when one considers that it has been handicapped as never has country been so handicapped, by a want of capital which has retarded every personal and collective attempt at exploitation of its resources. Why, then, such success as has been and wherein the reason for lack of greater triumphs?

Not ours to praise the men but to point the way. The stubborn, unyielding determination to make the land yield such good gifts as Nature would permit, the dogged doing of the duty of the day, the honorable fig’ht against adversities of soils and seasons ; these have made the men of the North and making them have made prosperity. To no outside influence of markets, of politics, or of artificial aid can our prosperity be traced, and only in the erection of Dairy Factories can there be found one instance of leaping advancement, but to these must be attributed something—aye, very much—of the goodness of the present as against the struggling uncertainty of the past. Before these, came misdirected personal effort was all too frequent, toil of mind and hand too often wasted, attempts at the onward condemned, by want of co-operation, to utter and dire failure, discouragement ever, ever. With the Dairy Factories came such marked improvement as, looking back, proves beyond doubt that cooperation is the only method ol in ternal development of our resources. And what are the resources of this North ?

Unknown because unsought, untold because unworked, imagined because lack of capital'restrains exploration and examination, the wealth of the North is an impossible possibility now in the mind of the dreamer but in the day to come vast, unchallengeable. Is there one man in the electorate who, knowing the vast waste lands, has not foVeseen the clay when the minerals, which must be in the land and of which there are so many indications, coal and gold and copper will be given to the hand of the

worker ? Is there anyone who can disbelieve in the vast wealth which must be hidden in the depths, undet the sand-hills and beneath the barren clay ? Can there be doubt that close and efficient prospecting would prove the existence of minerals, valuable and payable? But there is, no capital at leisure for sudh exploration and the geological and metallurgical government experts are not for the North so that to the small syndicate, the combination of the thrifty land workers, must be the work of prospecting and the honor and gain of discovery. In another direction lack of capital hampers progress, but here the example of the Dairy Factories should encourage effort. It cannot'be denied that in the Bay electorate there is one of the finest fruit-growing districts in the world, and as a wine-growing country it has no equal. Yet there is no cannery and no vineyard worthy of the name. Peaches, pears, plums, the choicest of fruits grow profusely—for the feeding of pigs or to rot upon the ground, A wine of sorts is made but in such quantity as to command little attention on the market. The erection of one or two canneries would be of inestimable worth and, again with the Dairy Factories before us, it only requires tho co-operation of a few of the leading pastoralists to ensure their existence as well as their ultimate success as business undertakings. It is a matter for the leading men, those men who have the ability and the interests of the district at heart, to whom such an undertaking as the placing of the growing- of fruit, its preserving and export would be merely a little item of thought and combination. Viticulture requires capital in so much greater a degree, the maturing of the wine, the delay in obtaining returns and the careful control and management heing far more tedious and less easy, but even here the Bay has the men and the brains and the North must look to its men and to none other for its development and prosperity. For from external capital or the government we can expect no aid and with ourselves is the future,