New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1884.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 657, 26 September 1884, Page 12

New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1884.

Since the times of depression settled down on the colony there has been no cessation of the cry that our local industries must be fostered, and new ones started in all directions. This lesson is dinned into the ears of the people by Parliament, by lecturers, and by the Press, and we are not sure that the pulpit has not had something to say in the matter. The people echo and re-echo the cry. Everyman tells his neighbour that the country must be saved by the expansion of its existing industries and by the establishment of others. The Colonial Treasurer sought to make his Einancial Statement more popular by the introduction of a short essay on the subject, and promised annual industrial exhibitions and gold medals for the purpose of stimulating compete tion. We have not a word to say against all this. The teaching is good, and is slowly, and in the natural order of things, being acted on. And yet in one most important particular the colony seems to have been, and still to be, grievously neglectful of its material interests in the matter of industries, and to have dozed, as Sir Julius Yogel expressed it, though for a rather longer period than he named. All our prosperity comes from the land. It is the source and foundation of our industries, and anything which lends to decrease its productive powers cuts directly at the root of the well-being of the colony. Yet, with a full knowledge that this is the fact, the Government and the people have been content to go on year after year without using effectual means to stamp out a pest, which is rendering whole districts almost as valueless as though they were buried under the sea, and which, though in some localities ic may for a time be grappled with energetically, is oftener either allowed to spread without let or hindrance, or is dealt with in a feeble and half-hearted way. Those who are ignorant of what the rabbits have accomplished towards the destruction of the national estate and of private property cannot employ themselves better than in reading several papers which have from time to time been published by Mr Charles Teschjiaeeb, a gentleman who has made the subject his special study, and has done his utmost to arouze his fellow colonists to a sense of the magnitude of the evil as it at present exists, and as it threatens to become in the not remote future. They will find that it is no exaggeration to say that the rabbit pest is a national calamity, in the absence of which the value of New Zealand’s wool export would have been very much greater than it is. Of course we are aware of what the legislature has done with a view of getting rid of the rabbits ; but notwithstanding the elaborate provisions, and the show of earnestness, the pest remains, and will remain until the colony faces the difficulty by the expenditure of very large sums of public money, and by the universal employment of the best exterminating agent available. This session attention is being drawn to the rabbit pest in two ways. A Select Committee is engaged in taking evidence with regard to it, and a petition, signed by about eight hundred and fifty Southland and Otago settlers, has been presented to Parliament, praying that Captain Raymond’s services as the discoverer of a cheap and efficacious means of rabbit repression may be fittingly recognised. This petition has also been recommended to the Government by six County Councils and by other public bodies. Captain Raymond’s remedy is phosphorised oats, prepared by a simple

process which he made public several years ago. He does not claim to have first used phosphorus as a poison for vermin, but merely that his method was the first which, on account of its cheapness and other advantages, made it possible to use phosphorus as an effectual poison on a very large scale, and over immense tracts of country. Judging from the great mass of available evidence of the experience of settlers both in Australia and New Zealand, there seems to be no doubt whatever that Captain Raymond’s claim is well-founded, and we should be pleased to hear that the petition of the Otago and Southland settlers had met with a favorable reception. But it would be a satisfaction, apart from that portion of the subject, to learn that the Government had taken steps to push the use of this remedy through all the districts troubled by rabbits, and that it was being extensively employed on Crown lands as well as on private estates. But of this we feel sure, namely, that until the colony fully realizes the extent of the evil, and commits itself to a large expenditure, the rabbit plague will never be got rid of.