COAL AND GUM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9491, 21 April 1894, Page 6

COAL AND GUM.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—lt is generally acknowledged that the North of Auckland is poor in agricultural land, and that its future prosperity, if it it ever to attain to anything above a bare existence for its people must depend on its industries. There is a known limit to the timber available for sale, and many intelligent men are of opinion that most of the timber now in the North will be required for the future industries, more especially for mining purposes. As far as we can at present see, the two principal industries will be coal and gum. The low price of gum has drawn the serious attention of all leading men in New Zealand, and up to the present there has been no workable proposition made to relieve the depiessed state of this important industry. It will be readily admitted by all parties that if the supply was diminished prices would rise, but how is this to be done. There is at the present time a great number of coal miners on the gumfields, and a still larger number of young men who would make good miners. Opportunity only is wanting. Let the Goverumeut put a duty on coal for a few years, and coal mines would open up from Whangarei to Kawakawa. Connect the Whangarei-Hikurangi railway with Kawakawa, and no doubt in ten years time, the North would be an exporter ol 1,000,000 tons of coal per annum. Settlers would then have a home market for all they could raise, and there would be a greater inducement for men to take up land. I know arguments could be brought forward against any duty on imported coal, but I hold that a nation's duty is the same as a private individual's, to look after its own interests, selfish though it may be. When the country is sufficiently wealthy, it can afford to be philanthropic, and it is, to say the least, foolish to attempt it before.—l am, etc., Correspondent. Kirapaka, April 11, 1894