THE REPORT ON COLONIAL INDUSTRIES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 40, 28 October 1871, Page 15

THE REPORT ON COLONIAL INDUSTRIES.

The work done by committees during the session of Parliament, though only presented to the public in the form of printed reports and notes of evidence, is by no means the least important part of the duties of the Legislature, and perhaps no more important committee than that appointed to consider the subject of colonial industries has taken evidence and made report during the present session of the Assembly. The object of this committee’s appointment was to consider what steps, if any, should be taken to ascertain and develop the producing and manufacturing resoures of the colony, and in the discharge of this duty the committee are understood to have received a large amount of evidence of an eminently practical and suggestive character, as to indstries for which there is an eligible field in New Zealand—in its mines, its rivers, and its seas. This evidence has not yet, so far as we have seen, been presented to the Houses of Assembly, but, preliminary to its production, the committee have framed a brief report from which we learn something of the character of their inquiry, and of the recommendations which they have resolved to make. According to this report, the principal subjects upon which they have taken evidence and made recommendations are four in number—the cultivation of beet-root and the manufacture of sugar therefrom, the encouragement of fisheries and fishcuring, the manufacture of paper, and the development of the Brunner and Mount Rochfort coal-fields. Sericulture and other subjects interesting to Acclimatisation Societies, and the matter of trade marks, are also referred to, but it is on the first-mentioned subjects that the committee have come to any definite resolutions. We are unable in our present number to quote the report at length, but shall indicate briefly the recommendations made to give encouragement to the growth of beet-root. The committee recommend that the Government should offer facilities for the acquiring, by a company, of about 3000 acres of land on reasonable terms; that Mr Krull, the German Consul, should be invited to assist the Government in introducing from Germany a sufficient number of persons experienced in the culture of beetroot ; that beet-root seed of the particular varieties adapted for sugar manufacture should be obtained ; and that a bonus of £2OOO should be offered for the first 250 tons of sugar. With regard to the establishment of coast fisheries, the committee recommend that these should be en-

couraged by means of a bonus, for a term of seven years, on cured fish, dry and pickled, exported for consumption abroad, and that suitable sites should be reserved for the purposes of fisheries and for curing stations. They made special mention also of the case of Messrs M‘Leod and Perston, of Wbangarei, and recommend that they should have the exclusive right of a block of 500 acres, thirteen miles north of Wbangarei, so long as they use it as a fishing and drying station. They further recommend that all articles used in coast fisheries should be admitted free of duty, and that all boats and vessels engaged in the fishing tiade be relieved from harbor, wharf, pilotage, and light dues. Convinced from the evidence taken that there are within the colony various fibres suitable for papermaking, the committee recommend that a bonus of £2.500 be offered for the production of the first 100 tons of printing paper produced by machinery, such bonus to be in addition to any offered by any particular province. The payment of Mr Smith’s expenses incurred in recent experiments with Taranaki iron sand, the offer of a bonus on the plan proposed by Mr Smith, and the voting of £IOO to aid the planting of mulberry trees for the purposes of sericulture, are other suggestions made by the committee ; and they refer also to the manufacture of glass and the question of the durability and strength of the various timbers grown on the colony as subjects worthy of attention. In conclusion the committee suggest that the expenditure of the various sums recommended be placed under the immediate control of some competent officer of the Government, with a view to their careful application, and that a report of his proceedings should be presented to the General Assembly at the commencement of next session.