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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4172, 4 August 1874, Page 2

The opposition to the State Forests scheme of the Premier is of both a negative and a positive character. Some hon. members who were certain to oppose it, on the principle that the author of the celebrated couplet disliked Dr. Fell—“ the reason why he could not tell"— have' been busily engaged - stabbing it in the dark with that most disreputable weapon, slander. Presuming to be able to see further than other hon. members, they asserted positively that a second reading of the Bill would never be asked for, or that if it were, it would be no other than a formality, preparatory to slaughtering the innocent. The Premier', they affirmed, had never intended to go on with the measure ; it was merely a fancy one—a toy to be played with for a time, and then discarded. The absurdity of this was written on the face of the carefully collated and exhaustive set of papers placed upon the table of the House at the commencement of the session. The Premier is not in the habit of indulging in such child's play ; and it was paying both themselves and him a very poor compliment to suppose that he would take part in such a farce, or imagine that they would do so. The very much stronger probability was that as his work grew under his hands, and as paper after paper reached him from different quarters of the globe, all tending to convince him more and more strongly of the importance of the subject he had taken in hand, ho would come before Parliament with a much firmer conviction than he could over have anticipated that the question he had undertaken to solve was, if not the most important of the day, second to scarcely any other. How hon, members could be persuaded he was trifling with them in proposing to deal with a subject involving interests of such vast magnitude is beyond our comprehension. It is true that ‘ ho said it might not become law this session, but he might repeat the remark without being open to the imputation that in bringing the subject before the House his intent was simply to dazzle the eyes of hon. members by its brilliancy and magnitude. The corner from which the insinuation came indicated the value that might be attached to it, and the motives that prompted it. There may bo more truth in the second reason-—one of a purely negative character—put forward why the Bill would not pass this session. Hon. members, with a ; humility it would be gratifying to witness if it were extended throughout their, whole course of Parliamentary life, said that the scheme was a very grand one. Was it not, they asked, too vast for them , to deal with at once 1 They wanted •time to enable their intellects to grasp it. This is an objection that we are free to admit we have no title to contradict. They Can speak with an authority upon the point that we cannot but respect. But we have a right to ask what time they think they should require ? The Government has . no right to be expected to wait. with this particular piece of legislation—we: were going to' say till doomsday—but we will add until hon. members

thoroughly comprehend the subject, if this be likely to be a work of time, such as, from reading some of the speeches delivered, we judge it will. , Here are some papers, forming a treatise on State Forestry, which any youth going up for matriculation must be able to master in a few hours and answer questions about it, or be plucked to a certainty. To this objection hon. members reply by urging that the scheme is just a little' too grand for the Colony. One grand policy has been tried, so far with complete success, and would it not be as well to “ rest and be thankful.” Ho not, say they, let us have too much of a good thing. We confess to being utterly unable to see prudence, weight, or even common sense in the course recommended. Why a scheme should be considered too grand for the Colony—or, more correctly speaking, too beneficial—we do not know. When the Premier came down to the House with Ms great Public Works and Immigration policy, the ■ same cry was raised. The rich prize was shaken before then- eyes, but they were afraid to venture and seize it. Their tiny bark might be upset by the ripples of the ocean, and they were timorous. They preferred, like old women, to sit and crone over their firesides. There can he no sympathy with this weak and shrinking policy. A long time ago a very wise man is reputed to have written, “ whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.” The question at once is whether the produce of the forests of New Zealand is being wasted, and whether timber is being consumed, if not faster than it is produced, at any rate in a very careless and improvident manner. In years to come we shall want a far larger quantity of wood for railroad, mining, agricultural, and other purposes than we are using now, and will there be a proper supply ? or shall we he obliged to check industry by using imported and necessarily dear timber? What “too much of a good thing” means, we are not able to say. If it mean that individually the people are too prosperous, we demur. If it mean that the Colony is making too rapid progress, we submit that the accusation implied cannot be sustained. Nor can it, that the scheme is too “grand.” Hon. members ■will go to bucolical dinners —or feasts of various kinds—and spout platitudes sufficient in volume to turn a mill, about the present prosperity and future greatness of New Zealand, and yet they look askance at a scheme because it is too “ grand.” There should he a little more method about their madness.

Mr. Fitzherbert’s opposition to the proposed scheme was, as might have been anticipated, of a thorough but a specific nature. He condemned it by “ bell, book, and candle.” And he was .kind enough to intimate what scheme or schemes would have met his approbation, in words that certainly tended to convey the impression that he would have liked one different in any way to that proposed. With him there “can be no good thing come out of Nazareth.” This, it is fair to say, in no way detracts from the force of his arguments. He commenced by giving his opinion that only after experience in the Colony and not from that in other lands, could a valuable scheme for State forests be framed. This is equivalent to saying .that crossing the Line has an alterative effect on facts and figures. Two and two, in some incomprehensible manner, become three or five, or some other number, by being brought from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere ; and in consequence of this strange variation he would put off the matter to a more convenient season —say in thirty years time when all the forest timber in the Colonies shall have been consumed. By that time we should have educated foresters, whose experience would be most valuable—in dealing with forests that had ■ been wasted and burned. The natural circumstances of the Colony, he wished hon. members to infer, were so different to those in Germany, which country we may remark lies in about the same latitude. Statistics respecting German forests are, said ho, of no value here. With a singular want of logic, the hon. member, who objected in the first instance to the acquisition by the Government of so valuable a portion of the Provincial estates for the purpose set forth, said he should not object to voting a sum annually, five times as large as that asked for, if some twenty or thirty of these German foresters, whose experience could be of no value if the first part of his argument were correct, were imported to manage our forests for us. But hon. members will not bo likely to agree with Mr. Fitzherbert that facts relating to the management of forests in Germany could be of no value in this Colony ; for they would see that Indian officials, of great ability and high standing, who had made the subject a study, had arrived at a directly opposite conclusion, notwithstanding that there is a far greater dissimilarity between the forests and circumstances of the country of India, and those of Germany, than between those of the latter country and this Colony. The hon. member, when he said that the proposal was to take two millions of the best land of the Colony—equivalent to form millions of good, bad, and indifferent—ought to have known that there is no proposal of the kind before the country. Land near to a town, or specially adapted for agricultural or mining purposes, is not to be selected, and any selection made may be objected to by the Superintendent of a Province, when the matter will be referred to arbitration. In consequence of this blunder the hon. member’s specific facts and figures, whether they related to Wellington in particular or the Provinces in general, were equally unreliable. And when he described the proposal as an attempt to capture the landed estates he was equally in error. A quid pm quo is offered, at the end of thirty years, as soon as created State forests could be expected to be valuable. In the meanwhile the Provinces have ninetyseven acres out of every hundred. Equally incorrect was the hon. member when he spoke of the Provinces paying four millions of money, during the thirty years, interest upon the money borrowed for railways. Ho knows that as far as experience goes we are justified in expecting the railroads to pay for themselves. The Iron, member should study his facts and figures to prevent him generalising from them in so illogical and misleading a manner.

Stewakt’s Island does not as yet enjoy the advantages of a local Press, nor do the journals of Otago, of which it forms a part, receive many written communications therefrom, as to the proceedings of the island population and the progress of their industries. We hear from Stewart’s Island, as from the Chatham Islands, only at long intervals, and through official sources. The latest information obtainable in this way is contained in a report from the Customs officer stationed in Port William to the’ Hon. the Commissioner of Customs, by whoso permission we are able to make a few extracts from the report in question. Mr. Greig, the officer referred to, states that since the date of his last report, there has been little change in the locality in which he is situated and secluded. Any progress being made, he says, is slow, but he believes that it is of a substantial character. The settlers are making their homesteads and dwellings more comfortable, and there appears to be a general feeling of contentment among them, while sickness—happy Stewart’s Island!—is almost unknown. Of the sealing season he says that the time for killing the fur seal began on the first of June, when three “mobs” of sealers, ns the scaling parties choose to call themselves, consisting in all of seventeen persons, were placed on the Snares, while one “mob” of four persona proceeded to the Solanders, where, he presumes, they are still located. The contract price for the skins of the seals sacrificed in these extraordinary situations is 225. 6d. per skin, large or small. Of the whaling made, he states that since the American whaler Eliza Adams brought two whales into Port William, as mentioned in his previous report, no other whaling vessel had visited the place. He had, however, frequently heard of whales having been seen in the Strait, and the' weather during the quarter having been mild, compared with that of'the previous quarter, the difficulty of capturing them could not have been great, had the attempt been made. Oyster fishing is another local industry which he notices, but he notices it only to say that the number of persons engaged in dredging was about the same ; as in previous ‘ years,: and that their operations were conducted much as they had always been; —whether with the , effect of

seriously injuring the oyster-beds or otherwise does not appear. Apropos of Stewart’s Island interests, we learn from, another source of information that an effort is-being made, to occupy a part of the island as a sheep farm, but for the present the enterprise has been interfered with by the prevalence of weather too severe to permit of the safe, transit and landing of the flock which had been shipped for the island. Slight as is the news received at any time from this part of the Colony, it seems to sufficiently indicate that, if its limited population is not sharing in the general prosperity, they are at least comfortable, and are becoming the nucleus of what will ultimately, no doubt, become a numerous and a hardy race.

When Commodore Wilkes, who commanded the American exploring expedition in 1810, returned to the United States and claimed to have discovered an Antarctic continent, considerable doubts were expressed on the subject. Circumstances appeared to tell rather against the Commodore, and it was very broadly asserted that he made use of prior observations by Sir James Ross, and of second-hand information, and set up a claim to a discovery which he had not made. Nevertheless the Antarctic continent found its way on to the American maps and charts, and was distinguished there as Wilkes’s. It now appears, however, that the discovery was a myth. The New York Herald publishes a letter from a young officer on board Her Majesty’s ship Challenger, so lately in Port Nicholson, which proves that no such land exists, the Challenger having sailed over that part of the Antarctic region in which Wilkes’s continent was said to exist, and found nothing but ice-fields and icebergs. Our American contemporary remarks ;—“ It is not often that a whole continent is so suddenly bowled down, as if it were but one of aset of ninepins, on the general plan of progressive science. Notwithstanding, however, that the Challenger has in point of fact sailed over the land of Wilkes, yet we must believe that land does exist in the vicinity of the South Pole ; for otherwise, while whatever ice might be formed upon the sea, icebergs could not be created, inasmuch as land is necessary, the iceberg being a fragment of the glacier, which is always of mountain origin, and, according to the best accounts, icebergs are more numerous and larger in the Antarctic than in the Arctic Seas. The , truth is, we know too little about either of these dreary regions of the earth. In the interests of commerce neither of the poles are likely ever to prove of greater value than for the capture of whales, sea elephants, and seals ; but to science they are of infinite importance, and in the new awakening of geographical exploration they cannot much longer be a simple ‘myth to the ignorant and wonder to the wise.’ ”

We observe from our American exchanges that the Italian begging-children nuisance has become so great in New York that the police have been required to take active measures to put it down. It appeara that in that city there are a number of Italian padrones who import large numbers of children from Italy, whom they train to regular and systematic beggary in the streets. They carry the proceeds of their importunities at stated periods to the padrone, who maintains an establishment expressly for these hnfortunate children—very much after the style of the den of Fagin, the receiver, where Charley Green and young Oliver Twist were taught the industry of pocket-picking by the old Jew and his apt henchman, the Artful Dodger. The law imposes a minimum fine of two hundred and fifty dollars, and a minimum imprisonment of one year, upon any one hiring out or employing children in any mendicant or wandering business, and the police had made one arrest, -with the view of making an example, and breaking up the organised gangs which infest the streets of New York and Brooklyn.