North Auckland Age. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED “The Mangonui County Times” and “The Bay of Islands Times” THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1917 THE FAR NORTH

Northland Age, Volume 14, Issue 32, 19 April 1917, Page 6

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

THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1917 THE FAR NORTH

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From the year 1832—when that pioneer of Christianity, the Rev. Joseph Matthews, first arrived in the Far North —to the year 1917, is a long call. We must all admit that the district in question with its vast potentialities in the shape of splendid harbours, winterless climate, large areas of excellent arable and bush land, and wealth in its gum and timber industries, should have made greater progress.

It has long been the custom to lay the blame for this want of progress on the shoulders of the

older settlers, but we feel sure that those who take the trouble to analyse the position dispassionately will see fit to go further and discover the real cause. In the first place we have no hesitation in laying the blame at the door of successive Governments, who have shamefully neglected a great national asset. If documentary proof of our assertion is needed we have only to turn for an example to the Public Works Statement of 1885, wherein the Departmental officers recommend that the extension of the railway from Hellensville northwards should be steady and gradual, constructing a short length annually, so that as the timber is cut the line should reach successive areas of forest lands, tapping each in turn. The great agricultural and pastoral value of the Northern Territory was lost sight of altogether. Strange to say this suicidal policy was acquiesed in by the Hon. E. Richardson, the then Minister for Public Works with the result that the nine miles extension this side of Kaukapakapa took seventeen years to construct, and this on a Main trunk Line the value of which was recognised by Sir Julius Vogel many years before. As far as the early settler is concerned we have to realise that he had not the same advantages as his more fortunate brother of to-day. True, meat, butter, cheese and other products could be produced, but they were of practically no commercial value. Fat bullocks which even at pre-war rates were worth £l6 to £lB were in those days worth from £3 to£4 and very little demand at that. Butter which previous to the war was worth Is 3d per pound was in the days under review worth 4d or 5d and had to be disposed of under the truck system. Cash was almost unknown and the means of exchange was cattle, horses, pigs and produce. This state of affairs was brought about by the want of communication with the Old Land and the want of faith of the Financial Institutions, who refused to advance on Northern securities. Is it any wonder that working under these depressing conditions, the early settlers lost heart and were content in the majority of cases to let things take their undirected course.

During recent years the conditions have entirely changed, all kinds of produce is realising high prices. The advent of the Dairy Factory system has given the settlers an assured finance, whilst the various Banks vie with each other in catering for the wider financial requirements of the district ; and the shame of it, the man who was responsible for this great change, the man who has put millions of pounds into the pockets of the farmers of this Dominion, the man who invented the Refrigerator, was allowed to die in poverty a few years ago. In some part of Southern Europe, we forget at the moment where, there stands a statue depicting a man with two faces, one bronzed and weather-beaten and showing signs of a long struggle under adverse conditions, looking back into the past, the other radiant and full of hope looking to the future. This statue is symbolical of the Far North to-day. The older settler looks back on the long and painful struggle for existence, and in turning begins to realise that in this favoured district he is living in a land of opportunity, such as is not to be found in any other part of this Dominion. He simultaneously realises that all he requires to enable him to extract its wealth is roads and railways. The above

facts have been more fully brought home to him by the opinions expressed by the large body of farmers, business and professional men who accompanied the recent Parliamentary Tour, who as one Southern writer truthfully put it, had come up to see a Wilderness and discovered an Eden.

The Far North has passed through years of trial, tribulation, neglect and maladministration of its great resources by successive Governments. To-day we look forward with hope and confidence in the North and are assured that in a few years after the termination of the war, it will experience a long era of that prosperity, to which its great natural advantages justly entitle it. The report of the Government Meteorologist which we publish in another column, bears eloquent testimony to the splendid conditions obtaining over the whole Northern Territory as far as rainfall is concerned, whilst the hours of sunshine rival those of Southern France and Italy.