TRADE WITH AUSTRALIA

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4513, 14 November 1901, Page 4

TRADE WITH AUSTRALIA

Wellington is perturbed by the paucity of produce just now offering for tho Australian market. In other words, we have struck the crucial point of our relations with the Commonwealth. It is the crucial point, that whatever rea. sons there may be for our union politically with Australia, ‘the openiug of the Australian market to tho producers of New Zealand is not one of them. In tho controversies which during the last year have been devoted to this subject this crucial point has been ignored. Many insisted during that controversy that New Zealand ought to federate with Australia in order to have an assured market for farm produce; and these, since the opportunity for federa. tion has been missed, have declared that New Zealand’s misfortune in the Australian tariff ‘'serves her right.” But the truth is that, whatever may have been the case in the past, the time has come when Australia is, in most departments of produce, independent of Now Zealand. Moreover, this Austra. lian position is sure to grow stronger with time, not weaker. Mr Ballance used to say that in good years Australia cannot consume the produce of New Zealand, whereas in bad years it must have that produce. Since then the Australian producer has had several bad years, most of which were due, not to tho evils of climate, but to those of statesmanship. New South Wales, our host customer, made a mess of its land settlement. Instead of putting settlors on good, lands of sufficient rainfall, the Lands Department of the Mother Colony forced them on to good lands in regions of known droughty character. The Riverina country of the nortb.west was thus filled, and the fine river valleys of the uorth.easfc were comparatively neglect ed. There are in the latter millions of acres fit for tho production of every, thing, except perhaps oats, that New Zealand produces. These fertile areas are blessed with an annual rainfall of between thirty and sixty inches. But the stupidity of successive Governments neglected them, and directed the priceless stream of immigration on to the 3lvnray and Miurrumbidgco areas, and

those of the Yanko, Billabong and JcnL deric, where the settlers spent their substance and wore ruined by drought. The northern rivers people further hurt their prospects by trying to make sugar their main crop, whereas cereals and dairy produce and a considerable subtropical industry would have been far more profitable. But the northern rivers are coming to their own. and New Zee. land will not include Australia much longer in the category of consumers of the agricultural produce of the colony. The Commonwealth tariff will no doubt help the Australian producer to hold his own against the Now Zealander. But that is a mere detail of degree. The radical point is that Australian production can, without artificial help, he independent of New Zealand. Hence it is well that when tue Australian tariff was published, New Zealand, instead of wasting her substance in retaliatory tariffs, calmly turned her attention to new markets. That was a practical, sensible recognition of the position.