THE TRAVELLER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1163, 15 June 1894, Page 9

THE TRAVELLER.

TO BRITAIN AND BACK AGAIN. O OE, THE TRAVELS AND PERSQNAL EXPERIENCES OF TWO NEW ZEALANDERS. By P.L.C. No. IX. Return of Common Sense—True Ele ments of a colony's greatness— Historical Illustrations- Statistical Returns —Butter Export— Discursive. " Will you New Zealanders be good enough \o join our party on Saturday afternoon in visiting tho Dairy Exhibition V Such was the invitation addressed to us by a couple of young Mel bourn ites. 44 With pleasure/' wo replied. "Tho products exhibited are strictly confined to our own Colony of Victoria. You will see with your own eyes what wo can do ever here. Your Colony has been forging ahead in butter as well as in frozen meat, so wo fancy we can do a little in that line ourselves/' This to us was an indication that Victoria in genera), and Melbourne in particular, had pomewhat shaken off the frenzy, stupor, and glamour of the boon?, j and were turning their eyes to veritable work, and honest production. This ex hibition of farm, dairy and orchard products was a sort of practical object lesson which Mr Patterson's (now Sir J. B. Patterson) Government was ho'ding up before stagnant and congested Melbourne. It was the first symptoms of the return of common sense. The producing power of a new colony is her true source of strength and great ness ; not her palatial buildings, showy promenades, suburban land auctions, jugglery in gold, abnormal multiplication of civic population, or insane extension of streets, towns, and boroughs. The I trend of practical legislation, the speeches of leading men in Parliament, articles in newspapers, and sermons in pulpits were all pointing in the direction of settling more people upon the laud. The agri•cultural, grazing, garden, aud spade periods iu # national history have always beou characterised by power, prudence, and prosperity, and the promineuce of those moral qualities which are the true basis of a people's title to greatness. "Subdue, and dress, and keep" the earth, were the primeval commands of our Maker—and although popularly looked upon as belonging exclusively to the sphere of religion, yet the philosophy of life and the science of living shows them to be but the primal laws of our nature and the exclusive avenues to upward progress and solid prosperity. Those primitive peoples who conformed to tho above laws, and exercised themselves in subduing the forests, reclaiming the wastes, and in sowing, and planting, aud reaping, and storing, rose in the scale of humanity, and their histories are records of onward and upward processional triumphs and marches, whereas those peoples and tribes who disobeyed the commands, or who, in other words, refused to comply with this primal law of their well-being, and spent their days in hunting, shooting, fishing, and fighting,

remained either savage, brutal and servile, or, worse still, retrogaded, demoralised, and disappeared A comparatively small nation of corn raisers, cabbage growers, and vino dres3ors gave laws as well as permanently left their impress on half of tho globe ; but tho death knell of their personal supremacy was sounded when they handed the care of mattcck, plough, and ox to servant and slave, and took to palace decorating, villa building, street forming, and threatre-coing. It is alsa worthy of note that the cessation of practical usefulness, and the inceptive signs of tho moral and spiritual declension of tho religious orders and brotherhoods in tho Old Country showed themselves shortly after the monks betook themselves exclusively to prayer and fasting (?), and resigned the spade, and hoe, and pruning knife to bondsman, villain, and tenant. A nation is perilously insecure whose gold and garments are more plentiful than its milk and honey. How often in tho world's history have sun, moon and stars looked down upon ploughman, vine-dressers, and swarthy hill shepherds clearing out the voluptuous and profligate palace occupants—clothed in their purple and fine linen, and sweeping the houses, villas, and streets of delicate livers and sumptuously fared ones. The historic picture, so often referred to, is only one out of many, of a company of graziers and shepherds taking possession of a country whose fields were worked by slave and pauper or b> servile and subI missive money borrower and mortgagee ; while the streets of its maritime cities flowed with gold, and its warehouses were at bursting point with merchandise. The end is not far off when conntrymen become tho money slaves of rich townspeople. 11 You have much need to turn your eyes to plough share, spade and milking pail, for a study of your Victorian social statistics i 3 most suggestive " i " Indeed, is that so?" queried our friends. "Wo read a good deal in a general way but really we have never troubled our heads with reading up such dry stuff as is supplied by our Statist." " No, just so, you know everything about politics and parties, sports and pastimes. You could toll us all about the racing studs of tho country, and where the future winners of the Derby and Cup are likely to come from, and all that sort of thing. But what of the future men and women of your colony ? What of those great questions and problems which you will have to face and work out for yourselves ? Have your amusements by all means —in moderation, but just think a little of the trend and drift and issues of lifr, society, industry and the general wellbeing? If you are honest you will confess that the cycling events and sports in connection with this exhibition will hive more attraction for you on Saturday afternoon than churns and cheese-mak-ing." " That's About it. But what of theso statistical returns ?" "Hero they are. For the decade which ran between the years 1881 and 1891 your total population has increased at the ratio of 32 per cent. Your trades men engaged on erecting buildings have multiplied 104 per cent., and your doctors, musicians, clergymen, actor.-) and lawyers hnvo added to their numbers 117, 85, 82, 81, and M per cent, respectively ; while your farmers and agricultural labourers and squatters, pastoral employees and station and stock hands have only increased 10 and 1G per cent. Your miners have either left you or lost heart, as they duung the period have decreased 56 per cent., while your domestic ai.d other house servants have increased 53 per cent. Your civil population is rapidly growing, and y-ur general health is theivby impaired, as your doctors muliiply at time times tho rate of population. You are neglecting your mining and mineral resources, and your import items show creative production and self reliance in somewhat of a suggestive light, irrespective of your tariff and semi protection proclivities. While your criminal class decrease, your teaching staff is not being augmented at anything like a ratio equivalent to the general increase of population." 44 It is possible), you will admit, that somewhat of a reversion is taking place in the present decade. Wo are retreating to primitive modes and methods,* was tho remark of our friends.

44 That is true," we replied, " and ivhat is more wo are glad of it and wish you evsry success. There is a danger how ever of your Government becoming too much of a wet nurse in the matter of subsidy and bounty. To ensure the rapid development of dairy export produce, your Government has initiated a system of co Idling bounties. Such a policy requires careful handling and judicious applying within circumscribed limits, otherwise the end in view may be robbed of its object. It's a singular turn of the wheel of. fortune that tho farmers in some of your Australian colonies have thus suddenly been taken under the wing—the motherly wing of democracy governmental, and truth to tell runs a risk of becoming a spoilt baby. We will give Victoria credit in thus giving the lie to the cry of 4 unionist' and ' working man,' as being the especial pets of the progressive politician."

kr Surely the game is well worth the candle," retorts our friends, " for you see England alone yearly purchases more than L 12,000,000 sterling worth of buttor from outside producers, and why should her own children not get some of those

millions instead of pouring thorn into the pockets of continental and foreign farmers I" The batter industry of Victoria has indubitably gone up by pats and p Hinds. To-day, a single dairy factory in Taranaki experts mote butter in a season than Victoria shipped from her shores in the year ISS9. The value of the roturns of Vic toria's butter export in the above year was a fraction over LGOOO. We have a lurking suspicion that some of that butter even had first of all been imported from New* Zetland. The year 1890 saw the sum of £34,00(3 received by Victorian butter exporters. In 1891 the export of the product in question substantially expanded to £105,761. The season's returns for the following year marked another leap upwards, when the figures read £2O-1,200. The coddling policy produced marvels last year, for the figures go bounding and booming to somewhat over half a million sterling. If we take up and compare the New Zealand butter export returns with those of our sister colony of Victoria, there is not such abnormal flotilla of flotsam and jetsam. The tone of expansion and increase has the stamp of health and solid vigour engraven upon it. The .£05,000 obtained by the export of New Zealand butter in 1889 expands by steady evolution into £212,530 in 1893. You may say the Victorian butter export trade has in five years evolved out of nothing, whereas ours in New Zealand has steadily grown with increased pastures, population and direct shipping accommodation, allied to facility of production, improved appliances and scientific modern methods. Knowledge is power, and its possession promotes self-respect and self-reliance. Our Governments are perhaps wiser in simply providing experts to impart knowledge and to teach us how best we can help ourselves. The dangling of a dole in money, or the fluttering of a bounty before our eyes, sometimes leads to the employment of questionable methods in producing a certain article, with the consequent loss of self respect in having pursued a zig zag pathway. Before now men have been known to erect bogus machinery and sot up plant of a flimsy and faulty nature and produce a certain quantity of a given article so as to claim the Government bcunty. The bounty recouped the outlay, they pocketed the profit, and there was an end of the whole concern. The establishment of a new industry was what the Legislature had in view, but it was frustrated by the'eunning and knavery of selfish rogues.

New South Wales is the land of the golden fleece and the domain of wool kings, consequently she has done very little milking or butter making in the years preceding 1889, in which season she exported a paltry parcel to the value of about £3OOO. To be an oldish colony with rich pastures this seems a mere bagatelle. For the thred years preceding 1893 her butter exports never rose above £33,000. Last year witnessed a change, when large numbers of her colonists took to milking and butter making, for we find that, from Sydney and her other ports she shipped outwardly butter to the value of £10],345. This, we suppose, indicates that for the futuro New South Wales means business in dairying. South Australia with her squatter princes, and her runs measurod not by acres but by leagues, considered butterchurning beneath her notice till last year. 44 Butter, butter ! Why, goodness, man, butter is not for pastoralists to churn and pat and patter ! Hang it all ! we prefer even wheat with rust, and harrows, and clods and ploughshares to milking stoo'e, cow bails and churns." *' Just so, South Austra'ia, bu' last year you came off your stock horse and milked a few cows for the first time in your life, and you exported £9615 worth of butter." The Canadians are our rivals in the butter export trade, but up to the present their shipments are neither so bulky nor so formidable as to causa us any serious alarm. £194,806 was the sura Canada received last year for exported butter, but, from whatever cause, the return shows a shrinkage of about one-half on that of the previous year. The increased attention being devoted nowadays to fruit-growing and dairyfarming is indicative that colonists are determined to face and meet the exigencies of the times and the wants of the Home markets.

Stock and station and grain growing are tho initial orders of new settlements and sparsely populated colonies. But with tho increase of population, the development of resources, the demands of the age and the exigencies of the times, horn and hoof, and sheep and shears, have to move inland, or in part make way for various forms and phases of industrial activities and enterprises. Men take the place of mutton ; wool was grown, now wages are earned. The lower makes room and paves the way for tho higher. Wild creatures are supplanted by domestic and useful animals, and these latter in turn give p'ace to man himself. We, in giving attention to these new industries, are merely pursuing the pathway of logical sequence, and development issue in healthy form and practical manner B The purpose of creation in this world at least—and the provision of nature find tluir climax in man, therefore questions of possible Jove and practical duty force themselves upon us; if we cultivate the first and acquire the latter the future pathway of our nation and country is secure agaiuit the pitfalls which have engulfed previous civilization*

and nationalities. The lessons of love, life and duty are very plain, but all the same, to enforce such, preceptors parsons and politicians have their work cut out. (To be continued.)