The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, MONDAY, JANUARY 11. 1864.

New Zealand Herald, Volume I, Issue 50, 11 January 1864, Page 3

The New Zealand Herald

AUCKLAND, MONDAY, JANUARY 11. 1864.

SI'KCTKMrR AGENDO. Hive every man thine ear. lmt few t'.iv voice: Take each mans censure, but reserve thv jiuV-neat TT.n above alt.—To thine owiiself lie true; And it must f How. as the night the .lay. Thou raust not then be fiU.-e io any man."

Railway communication at till times, and in till countries, a matter of the utmost consequence, is at the present moment, for ought to be), a vital question with the colonists of Auckland. A loan of three millions is about to be raised; the colonisation of the interior is about to be undertaken on a scale of magnitude ; harbours are being surveyed -. the sites of future towns and villages are preparing to be laid off: and the occupation of the waste lands is to be promoted by every available means.

Now the primary element of success to the industrious and intelligent farmer consists in the facility ami economv with which he can convey his produce to market. To achieve this lias been one of the greatest desiderata with the husbandmen of the Australian colonies. And it is, perhaps, quite as much to the easy and inexpensive means of carrying the products of the farm from the plains to the port, as to any inherent superiority of climate or of soil.'that the growers of .South Australia have obtained almost a monopoly of these southern wheat markets.

The prediction that Xew Zealand is destined to be the granary ofthe Australian colonies has yet to be fulfilled : but that she eventually will become so we entertain a full and unshaken confidence. Had there been as little difficulty in acquiring peaceful possession of the soil of New Zealand as of that of .South Australia, our progress would have put in a very different appearance from what it has hitherto done; for although nature has not cleared a large tract of hind contiguous to our chief port, into which the husbandman had only to enter his ploughshare and turn over the soil, still s'ie has gifted us with a most genial climate, a fruitful country, pierced in numberless directions by navigable water courses, and requiring but peace to allow its occupants to improve its condition, and a steady influx of industrious population to insure its continuous and great prosperity.

Our facilities of water communication cannot be over estimated. "Without them we should have been placed in great straits ; but water communication alone cannot accomplish everything. There are districts into which neither our rivers nor water courses penetrate, but which when occupation ofthe long injuriously (dosed territory takes place must become the garden of the Province and the guerdon for all the expenditure that Auckland may incur in promoting their colonisation.

_ The spot that most demands our immediate attention is that which General Cameron is reducing to our sway. The entrance to the "Waikato has been surveyed, and the basin within the Heads has been' pronounced to be of such value that the construction of a town and harbour is already an accomplished fact; and the preliminary steps towards the foundation of towns and" villages on the banks of the AVaikato river are rapidly proceeding.

.Bcforo the rebellion broke out", the unlive husbandmen of the 'Wuikato brought c-on-Hiderable qtiantities of vhetit, Hour, vegetables, and fruits into : and for a time those supplies, together with others from native growers on the East Coast, not only sufficed for nil our own requirements, but enabled our merchants to export to.some considerable extent to .Sydney and Melbourne. The rebellion has not onlv extinguished their trade in native products, but it has very nearly annihilated cultivation by Europeans, expelled from their homesteads, and drafted into the military service of the colony. These things have driven this JVorinee a 10h.15 way out of her course. They have inflicted the heavy disasters of the last four years. They have crushed us for the" past. They cripple us for the present. And they tire p]imo-in<r us . - m t o debt to retrieve the position from which the rebels have madly precipitated themselves, and, pari passu, have dragged us. We are now working hard to fetch up our lee-wav. Through AVaikalo we have been drifted into difficulty; and through AVaikato wo must Htrive to repair the damages we have sustaiiied. The question is, /<cw.' "Bv occupation and colonisation. These, of"course, are the primary elements; and if these be, (as wo Tiope thc.y will) wisely directed and

belitlingly encouraged and assisted the sue- I cess cannot (ail to surpass the expectations ot the most sanguine. I Xo«- is the time to strike. Xow is the ! time to l„„d cnteryrising colonists hl tho ! eon emplalod work. They will require the ready means ot conveyance of produce to I market l| ley (lllgllt l( , , )0 in j turn of being able to assi.t in construction I | ot those means, and of prolitting bv them ; \vben construefed. Auckland, if she fur- j lushes the means, will reap the fruits of her : oresight Let l,er reflect that the West I I-oast and lis inland territory have an yet \ profited her nothing. Waikato harbour is ! now however, about io bo called into an I existence. which must become either ancillary ' or detrimental to much of her maritime and ! mercantile iinportance; and as "Waikato ' prospers, so also will .Raglan and Kawhia ■ grow in greatness. Euergv and enterprise inay render those ports the'feeders of Auek- ! land; but apathy or neglect mav cause them ' to become thorns in her side. 'Waikato has already furnished ns with the earliest intelli- ! gence from Australia and Kurope. So far good. And so far we have a strong incentive to render the communications between the out port ami the capital both immediate and complete. The resources of the Waikato. ascertained and conjectured, have been assumed to be of an extraordinary charac- j tor. Coal of excellent quality, and" abounding in quantity, is known "to range over large tracts of territory—iron likewise exists, and gold is said to have been discovered : the river (lows through an extensive and fertile country: it is rapid in some places ami shallow in others ; so, in bygone days, was 1 luit king of Scottish rivers? the Clyde. " Sixty years since." a herring buss could with difficulty load at the Broomiolaw. To-day. L'ooo ton clipper ships are to be seen lying alongside its quavs. But the Clyde, navigable as it is. has i'ts commercial importance fortified by its canals ami railways. .11 once its vast and increasing prosperity.—hence its commanding inllu'eiice as a shipping, ship-building, and manufacturing artery, studded with towns and ports" '' whence the world is furnished with steam. ' j Glasgow is tin., fountain head of the j Clyde: but Auckland, admirable as is her i maritime position, is not the fountain head • of the Waikato. If she desires to become i so, she must bind Waikato to her sen ice ■ both by the river and the rail. Steam irallic ; < by way of Manukau has already been most • judiciously and successfully 'introduced. Without it (iciieral Camenm's movements could not have been effectually carried out ; and even with it they stand greatly in need of the assistance to "be derived from ihe rail. ' , By railway alone can the Waikato become ; subservient to ihe true interests of Auckland. < Upon the establishment of railroads [ ■ the progress and prosperity Auck- i land and Waikato mainly "depend. A ' railway of an inexpensive character i ' may be laid down with great promptitude. < , will render ten times the service, and with j ; incalculably greater dispatch than the iinesi i • macadamized road ever constructed, whilst ! : the expense of wear and lear will amount to j : comparatively nothing. Southland lias laid ' down some five and twenty miles of railway ! : in a very lew months, in order to facilitate \ ' her connection with the coast and the gold ' . fields. Can Auckland hesitate to do likewise when the conquest of the Waikato in the first instance, and its conversion 1o her ■ ■ commercial and maritime supremacy in the ; next are the stakes to be plaved for '}