The Old Country.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXI, Issue 6464, 27 January 1896, Page 4

The Old Country.

(FROM OTTK ENGLISH CORRESPONDENT.) London, December 13. Mr Chamberlain has taken an important step which will arouse the interest of the colonies. He has addressed several ' inquiries to them with a view to business. If Mr Chamberlain can get all the colonists to see that by working hand in hand with England, and with each other, they and we = may become virtually independent of foreign trade as regards most articles of consumption, he may be taking a greater step than can be iully measured at present towards the realisation of Richard Cobden's hope that free trade would be the universal rule of commerce. Mr Chamberlain, takes up, emphasises, and adapts to work what has hitherto been tentatively and imperfectly done by some of the colonies, the Imperial Institute, the Colonial Institute, and the Chambers of Commerce. We are now to learn the value of the chief articles reachins our colonies from foreign countries and the reasons which induce preference for foreign goods where they are preferred ; to have a comparison of quality and finish, and a statement as to suitability for a market; on making up and packing, false marking, and so~forth. Mr Chamberlain wishes to find out how large a share of the mutual trade of the United Kingdom and the colonies could be secured for British producers and manufacturers, whether they are located in the British Isles or the colonies. We (says the Daily Chronicle; can get at all this first by defining our terms, and secondly by willing co-opera-tion. What is to come of it we shall know in good time. Some of the colonies may possibly expect a measure of protection as the result. They will be deceiying themselves. Differential duties will never ascain have a place on an Ensflisn Statute 'Book. But our Colonial Office, our Asrents - General, our colonial Governors, will be doing more than ever they have done before if they set themselves to make generally known what the various countries composing the Empire want from one another, and how those wants can best be supplied. Mr Chamberlain's activity in colonial matters has attracted the notice of our friend Punch, who gives us the following :

KEEPING HIS "i" IN. To " run " the Empire on business lines Is the way—so they say—-to which Joseph inclines ; And no doubt he'll remark, with an emphasis sly, " Betwixt ' run 5 and 1 ru(i)n' there's only an 'l'."

A representative conference on light railways for agricultural districts has been held in London, Sir A. K. Rollit, M.P., in the chair. The Chairman, in opening the proceedings, said that lately gre.it ini teresfc had been taken in light railways. This was manifested chiefly abroad, for in our own country light railways were few and exceptional, which was probably owing to the faulty nature of the Acts of Parliament under which they have had to be constructed. His (the speaker's) experience was that light railways depended upon the co-operation of the State with the local authorities ; there was only one country besides England in which the State had not lent its co-operation, and that was Holland. He they might ask the State to do something to help them, and that the absence of its help would render all progress impossible. (Cheers.) He looked for the triple cooperation of the State, the locality, and private enterprise. (Cheers). Light railways would be beneficial to agriculture, to the fisheries, and to the individual traders. He had seen the Belgian railways, and there they had the best example of the triple co operation of which he had spoken. In France they had a smaller experience for various reasons, but Italy contributed some useful examples of the good that might be done. Light railways would be strangled at their birth if it were necessary to have an act of Parliament for each. In many cases he hoped that land would be given, or payment taken for it in shares in the undertakings. He held that light railways were absolutely necessary to a proper system of co-operative collection of agricultural produce. Major Rasch, M.P., thought that the Government should do as they had done in Ireland. There the barony gave a guarantee of two per cent., and the Government a similar guarantee. They did not want in England what would be equivalent to the barony guarantee — namely, one from the county council, Dufc they did want a Government guarantee. They ought to clear their minds of what was meant by the words " light railway." What they did want was steam tramways. The former would cost LSOOO a mile and the latter LI2OO. If they could get rid of parliamentary expenses and could get awards from the county council they could make 200 miles of steam trams with a guarantee of L4OOO a year. Mr Vaughan Davies, M.P., moved a resolution to the effect that those present form themselves into an association to carry out the resolution. In doing so, he expressed himself as being in favor of narrow gauges, and said they had railways in Wales of 2ft. 9in. gauge, which last year carried 60,000 tons of goods and 100,000.passengers. Some of the speakers had spoken of what were really branch lines of present railways, and which meant stations and signals, and regulations, which would increase the expense to such an extent as to make them out of the question in most districts. This was carried unanimously. Properly conducted, emigration, promises to prove a potent influence in dealing with the ever-present question of how to solve the unemployed problem. In the

past the tendency has been too much to draft off to the colonies the down-at-he.els who have lasted their lives, and '.Will never do good either for others or for themselves; but now, happily, new methods are adopted, and the various agencies which encourage emigration exercise careful discrimination, and take every precaution to prevent the importation into the New Country of any save those who may be reasonably expected to benefit themselves and the land of their adoption by the change. Especially valuable is the work being done in sending off the young after they have been trained for an agricultural life. In this connection a good word is merited by Dr Barnardo, through whom nearly 7500 boys and girls, who, but for the Homes, would have been numbered to-day amongst our waifs and strays, are now doing well in Canada. The system followed by the Doctor has been severely censured in some quarters, and numerous attempts have been made to check his efforts ; but the best answer to all such criticism is to be found in the fact that 99 per cent, turn out well, and that every mail brings letters from former charges gratefully acknowledging the help given to them. There can be no doubt as to the good work being done when such facts can be presented. The only possible room there can be for regret is that these young people are lost to the mother country, which has trained them. This argument, however, ought not to be allowed to weigh in the scale against the great blessing the Doctor's work is to the country at large, as well as to the waifs and strays themselves. At a meeting of the Royal Colonial Institute, presided over by MrS. Yaughan Morgan, a paper entitled "Colonisation and Expanison of the Empire" was read by Mr W. S. Sebright Green. The question of finding employment for the ever-in-creasing population was one, he said, demanding consideration more and more. Agriculture, which in the earlier part of the century was the principal source of employment for the rural population, was no longer able to afford scope for remunerative labor to those seeking it, and it was difficult to see how, under the present system, the cultivation of the soil could ever again be made to yield the threefold income which it did half a century ago. The troubles which arose from thoughtless and restless emigration to places where there was no actual demand for labor were not likely to arise from colonisation systematically carried out. He, therefore, suggested that a large society, not carried on for gain or profit, might be established for the promotion of colonisation in the British colonies ; the purchase of land for settlements and the making of advances to families of small means desiring to go out as settlers. The society should take the responsibility of selecting the colony as well as the land to which settlers should be sent.