New Zealand Times. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1874.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4273, 30 November 1874, Page 2

New Zealand Times. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1874.

We have already placed before our readers the leading features of the statistics of population for 1873, as we find them in the Registrar-General's annual volume. There is, however, one feature of the vital statistics to which we shall briefly advert in this place, before considering the statistics of trade and interchange. We refer to the mortality tables. As the statistics stand at present, these are not worth much for actuarial purposes, for which, we imagine, they are primarily compiled. The Registrar-Gene-ral has not given a clue to the comparative healthfulness of the several provinces, inasmuch as to form anything like a correct theoiy from tho mortality tables, we should know for what period persons resided in the localities where their deaths are registered, and also what was their general state of health on arrival there. Of course, these details the RegistrarGeneral cannot furnish with anything like accuracy, if at all; but without them any theory founded upon the vital statistics of New Zealand must be worthless. With population pouring into the country by tens of thousands yearly, drawn from the working and destitute classes at Home, our mortality tables are valueless, except to show the total loss by death during any given period. We say this, howover, not by way of fault-finding, but simply as a protost against tho vory common habit of generalising, on this subject, into which many of our contemporaries have fallen since tho first issue of tho vital statistics by the RegistrarGeneral. Coming to tho tables showing the extent and variety of our foreign trade, wo are ablo to form an accurate opinion. The Registrar-General, copying tho form of tho Victorian statistics, has compiled a

statistical summary of the;colony from 1853 to 1873 inclusive. This is a decided improvement. From it any one may see almost at a glance the relative progress of the colony from year to year. Formerly, it was a task of no little difficulty and labor to compile, for newspaper purpose*, those results which are now grouped.together in a single table under distinct headings; and we are certain we only express the unanimous feeling of the journalists of the colony, when we record our thanks to the Registrar-General for this change of form in the annual statistics. In 1853, we should not be far wrong in estimating the population of New Zealand at 30,000 : there is, however, no official record, but in 1854 it numbered 32,554. If, however, we contrast the extreme periods embraced in the return before us, we shall be able to determine pretty accurately what has been accomplished during tho twenty years that intervened between the close of 1853 and the end of 1873. Thus:

1854. 1873. Population .. .. 32,554 .. .. 295,940 Revenue .. .. £291,416 .. .. £2,753,181 Imports .. .. 891,201 .. .. 5,477,970 Exports .. .. 320,890 .. .. 6,404,087 Savings Bank deposits .. .- 812,144 Tons shippingInwards .. .. 74,831 .. .. 259.297 Outwards ... .. 70,718 .. .. , 281,847 Vessels registered in colony 30,035 Miles telegraph .. .. .. ■ • 2,389 Miles railways open .. .. . ■ 145

Thus the twenty years in question bridge over a remarkable gulf .in the history of New Zealand colonization. No one could imagine, running down the long lines of figures representing the material progress of this country during the period under review, that for more "than half the time the colonists were engaged in a life and death struggle with the aboriginal inhabitants of the country; —that while commerce flourished and settlement progressed, war in some of its worst features, was being waged in the North Island. Yet so it was. Great, therefore, and striking as have been the results of British colonization in New Zealand, we cannot but think thai these would have been much greater if the energy and capital of both races had been diverted into peaceful channels. In the foregoing figures we have selected those which, at first sight, appeared to be most suggestive ; but a closer scrutiny of the return before us brings out many other points of public interest.- Let us take, for example, the columns showing the export values of New Zealand staples. The extremes of export,— viz., £303,282 in 1853, and £6,464,687 in 1873, —are instructive enough, but when we look at how these totals are made up, we are better able to understand the causes of our colonial prosperity. Wool has been, from the first, the staple export of the colony, notwithstanding the vast treasure export of native gold, since 1857. Year after year, the wool export increased in value. In 1853, the wool export of New Zealand was 1,071,3401b5., worth £66,507; in 1873, it was 41,535,1851b5., valued at £2,702,471. Unlike the gold export, that of wool has not been liable to much fluctuation. But it must be remarked that the high price of wool during the years 1872-73 increases the declared value of exports in those years out of all proportion to th 9 increased production. Thus, while 37,793,7341b5. in 1871 is declared worth £1,606,144, in 1873—two years afterwards £2,702,471. The pastoral interests, and by consequence the colony, gained by the rise in the price of wool since 1871; —a rise which, we are glad to say, the recent London wool sales sustained.

Gold began to be exported in 1857, in which year New Zealand sent abroad 10,436 ounces, worth £40,442. During the three following years, the gold export did not promise much, as the annexed figures show : v 1858.. .. 13,5330z5. £52,443 1859.. .. 7,338 „ 28,427 1860.. .. 4,633 „ 17,587 But in 1861, when the Gabriel's Gully rush set in, the gold export rose to 194,234 ounces, valued at -£1,591,389. Next year it was £2,431,723 ; and the maximum was touched in 1866, when New native gold, of the declared value of £2,884,517. Last year the gold export was worth £1,987,425 ; or £715,046 less than the export value of wool for the same period. But here comes another consideration. While the pastoral interest has largely added to the wealth of the colony, the gold mining interest has done infinitely more to introduce population, promote settlement, and of necessity to encourage commerce and industries of all kinds, as well as vastly increasing the revenue. The gold discoveries in New Zealand, therefore, were th«j means of sustaining the colony during its long and exhaustive war with the Maori nation, and of rendering possible the extension of settlement, and the profitable occupation of the waste lands. This will inconteatibly appear from the following figures taken from the official return : 1857. 1866. 1873. Population 49,802 .. 204,114 .. 295,940 Acres in crops 121,048 .. 600,000*.. 1,416,033 Wool export £170,670 .. £1,354,152 .. £2,702,471 Gold export 40,442 .. 2,884,517 .. 1,087,425 Total revenne 245,576 .. 1,802,722 .. 2,753,181 * This is an approximate quantity. In 1804, when the Agricultural statistics wero taken with the census, there were 382,055 acres under cultivation, and in 1887 the acreage was 870,909; so that 500,000 acres is a fair estimate for 1860.

But we might select other years which would equally illustrate what we have said regarding tho impetus given to the colonization of New Zealand by gold discoveries in various provinces. Wool is untaxed, and until very recently almost everything needed by the pastoral interest in the prosecution of that business was imported duty free. Flockmastera obtained immense territory at low, or even insignificant rents; freeholds of great intrinsic value fell to them on their own terms, as defined by statute ; whereas everything, that the miners required in the prosecution of their business, everything they consumed, all they produced, and the ground out of which it was taken at much risk, labor, and expense, were tolled, taxed, arid weighted by rents in every conceivable way. We do not complain of the pastoral interest having been dealt with in a generous spirit; but we do complain, and not without reason, that the mining interest, which has done so much for Now Zealand, has been crushed by legal exactions. In the one case we have the production of a staple of fluctuating value steadily increasing; in tho other case, we have the production of a staple of a fixed standard value falling off. In 1871 tho gold export was £2,787,520—1arge1y in excess of the export valuo of wool; in 1873, it footed up £1,987,425, being about a quarter of a million in exces3 of tho gold export for 1872. If what we havo written leads our public men to give more consideration to this important question, our task will not havo been undertaken in vain. Tharo is a great future in store for New Zealand, but much' romains to be dono beforo it can bo said that its present development has been consolidated. Encouragement might'be given to mining and manufacturing industries, not by means of protoc-

tive tariffs, but by the removal of all impediments to private enterprise. Otherwise, we fear that counter attractions will induce niany of our producing population to leave our shores ; —a loss which will not soon be made up by any probable accession to our number, of the raw material for colonists from the United Kingdom.