The Otago Witness, WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. THURSDAY, ARRIL 25, 1889. THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 953, 25 April 1889, Page 21

The Otago Witness, WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. THURSDAY, ARRIL 25, 1889. THE WEEK.

" Nunqu&m allud natura, allud supientia dixit."— Juvenal. Good nature and good sense must ever join."— Popb.

It has often been remarked, and very truly, that the long period of depression to which New Zealand was subject has brought

to the colony the advantages that usually accrue to the individual from adversity. As in such periods the individual practises small economies and husbands resources, so the suffering nation turns its attention to new industries, and is prone to be satisfied with small; beginnings ' and moderate returns, rln thl small wajr fcp'owr,

Inilnitrln! Infant*.

ledge is aoquired with very little expendi--> ture, and experiment is made with little risk. In prosperity there is : generally a lordly disregard of small and troublesome industrial undertakings. But prosperity, or j the prospect of it, comes in well after the struggling period, and generally provides the capital requisite to nourish the infant industry into a vigorous manhood. The New Zealand'frozen meat trade had struggled* on bravely, and even left to' itself might haye been fairly relied upon to develop into something very large. But the capital of the British Imperial Trading Co. will quicken the process, and, together with her natural capacities, give this colony a start; which,' we may well believe, will soon . leave all foreign competitors far in the rear. At ja still younger stage is the trade in dairy produce, i • This has been the offspring -6f depression, and has struggled and tottered through the trying period until it is just becoming ripe for the applica-. tion of capital to further development. Ten years ago Denmark was seldom mentioned as a butter producing country ; yet it now stands at the head of the world. It had the pre-requisites of pasture and climate, and the Danes, recognising the fact, spared no money, labour; .or care in making the industry what it now is. England requires yearly considerably more than 200,000 tons of butter, and only produces 90,000 tons ; so that about 115,000 tons must come from abroad, and to Denmark she pays nearly three millions sterling a year for the contributions of that country. France also receives from her about £2,300,000 in exchange for butter. It is now tolerably well recognised that New Zealand, which the decree of fate has fortunately made a dairy-producing country, can supply as good an article as" either of those countries. It has further been decreed that our season of abundance is the English season of scarcity. Having, therefore, c all the jpre-requisites, and something more, it remains for us to increase our knowledge, improve our appliances,! and establish a footing in what ought to be our natural market. Cheese is another, article of dairy produce, the profitable export of which the experience of the last few years shows to, be well within the capacities- of the colony. England imports cheese to the value of nearly five millions sterling, of which a million and a-half already goes to a British colony — Canada — and a still greater sum to the United States. So far as natural conditions are concerned there is no reason in the world why New Zealand should not take the place of the latter. But the invariable characteristic of a young industry is lack of uniformity in the article produced. It is not enough that the colony can produce first-class butter and excellent cheese. It must learn uniformly to produce them. All authorities agree that it does not do so at present. Until this defect is overcome we cannot expect to get a permanent hold of the English market.

It is a little apt to be overlooked that the first condition, if not of sue-

conditions cesSj a t any rate of preof eminence, is quality of passncec... ture< - Tnis i s Nature's part of

the business. A scientific farmer oan make his pasture very rich, but he cannot give it flavour. The Dutch can get an average produce of 1751b of butter from a cow, as against 501b in England, 451b in France, and 651b in Denmark; but the best Dutch butter is probably not equal in flavour to the best of these other countries, let the process of making be what it may. The Western District of Victoria produces about the finest wool in the world, but if you travel 50 miles outside of a certain boundary the same sheep will not produce the same wool. Particular districts in the Island of Cuba supply the finest cigars in the world, but a similar soil and climate elsewhere and similar manufacture will not produce the same cigars. It is the pasture of Somersetshire that makes the Cheddar and of Leicester the Stilton cheeses. Next to pasture comes cleanliness in every operation, from the milking of, the cow onwards. Mr M'Callum declares that the celebrity attained by the farmers of Denmark and France is mainly due to theirstrict attention to cleanliness. The writer of; a prize essay, reprinted in an,official pamphlet on dairying, says that "excessive cleanliness, is the first and second and third most important thing in butter-making. Ordinary cleanliness won't do; it must be extraordinary." Professor Kobertson, of Ontario, in the same way insists that " the utmost cleanliness in milking, in vessels, in utensils, and in all surroundings must be observed to preserve the flavour and body of milk, cream, butter, and cheese from contamination." The Agent-general, Sir F. D. Bell, in some valuable notes on this subject addressed to the Premier, says that " Normandy butter (most in vogue in the London market) is made for the most part at the farms, with an unrivalled exactness and minuteness of attention to every detail, added to a remarkably good quality oE milk." Minute attention to detail may be a quality of the English manufacturer, but it is not generally of the farmer; and until we develop it in New Zealand we cannot expect to reap those advantages of dairy production which in the way of climate and pasture Nature has placed -within our reach.

Last week we took occasion to adversely criticise some opinions and The n»u suggestions made by Mr Htt Roberts in his address to the On tho Head. Chamber of Commerce. With

one pregnant remark of his, however, everyone will cordially agree. Congratulating the colony on the recovery of its finance and the existence of a surplus in the revenue, Mr Eoberts takes occasion, truly to remark that notwithstanding the prospects of better times the position of the colony is such as to demand that for years to come "revenue surpluses should be steadily devoted to the reduction of taxation, rather than regarded as clearing the way for more of that borrowing which has wrought so much mischief to New Zealand." To act up to such a policy would in our circumstances be the height of political wisdom.. But we fear there is little chance of it. 1 and economy has been for some time the cry of the hour, andb othe cry^'of . ihe hour Sir Hi Atkinson is "ready, enwgh^o lend a willing ,ear. But he coin-, inenced his period of office with a new loan, and there is nothing at all in anything he'

"has 'said or f done since, to indicate thatorfehas any notion of doing without borrowejcl money, as a part of the colony's yearly expenditure. Mr Fergus has recently,, .been singing.the praises of, the^ Northern Trunk line, and different members, both North and South, begin to see the necessity for the immediate prosecution of works of various " kinds. What ■ the> colony ' wants is to stand on its 'own- 1 resources for a year or two; let the revenue struggle with the expenditure until by natural expansion it.overcomes it, reduce taxation with every available item, and when recovery is complete and the finances easy, borrow for a special occasion and not as a policy. Such a course would, however, require, an amount of political courage and determination, and involve so great a disturbance of habit, that we can scarcely expect' to see it carried- out. * When the present money, is exhausted there will be the inevitable loan, unless indeed the' people of New Zealand do what people gensrally seldom do— namely, retain and apply the.wisdom.purchased by adversity after the pressure of adversity has in part been removed. Commenting upon Mr Roberts' j remark on this subject, the Christchurch I Press says truly that " an annual increase of a million sterling in the value of our exports would do more to restore confidence, revive trade, and give employment to thousands than the squandering of any number of borrowed millions, the only legacy of which would be, fresh embarrassment and increased depression," If for once a Government could be got together composed, not of a fortuitous concourse of atoms, but of men determined to do the work, it would be for New Zealand an act of emancipation for which the present and future generations would have reason to be thankful.

The positionof Mr George Fisher, late Minister of, Education, 3oes riot jmwor«« prove with his own explana»nd tions. In a somewhat lengthy won». letter addressed to the Pre-

mier on the 6th .inst. he makes what we may fairly assume is the best case for himself which the circumstances will admit, and at its best it is a very weak case indeed. It is of course a very grave error in his position'to make- any case at all, but that aspect of the matter may be overlooked at present. Mr Fisher declares that the brewery prosecutions, as the cause of his compulsory retirement from the Cabinet, are the " purest pretence." The real cause was the fact that he'differed from the. Cabinet, on " large questions of policy," of which questions of policy he enumerates eight, including the composition of "the Railway Boardand the appointment pf Judge Denniston. Other large questions of policy upon which Mr Fisher differed with his colleagues are of a rather shadowy kind, ; such as the " attitude" of certain Ministers in the matter of Gasparini; while some are questions still in the womb of the future, as for instance the "necessity of proposing a modification of the property tax." Another subject of difference has been the enunciation of the Premier's views (not in Cabinet, but before the public) on land nationalisation. Now it requires a considerable stretch of imagination to make these out to be "large questions of .policy" at all. „The question of handing the railways over to a. board might have been one of policy, .but when that matter had been decided the mere composition of the board is but an act of administration. In the same way the appointment of a judge is but a detail though it may be an important one. As for the Premier's views on nationalisation, they are but private views which he is entitled to, hold,, and which cannot possibly be. made aiquestion of policy, large or small, while the land system of the Government is based-on totally different and, indeed, antagonistic principles. But, assuming that they are all alike large questions of policy which were offensive to Mr Fisher, why on earth could he not relieve himself of all responsibility by resigning ? The answer is twofold— first, because Mr Fisher had an Education Bill in the printer's hand ; and, secondly,,. because, Mr, Fisher regarded the " situation from a constitutional point affecting not only himself but all future Ministries." ,The first reason, goes absolutely for nothing. Mr Fisher could defend, explain, and support his bill from his place in the, House, just as well as on the Treasury Bench. The second reason is entirely against him. Regard for ■ constitutional precedent demanded, not that he should remain, but that he should retire. In not doing so of his own free will, he took full responsibility, for all the "large questions of policy" to which he objected. The whole story is in a nutshell. On beha}f of some leading constituents Mr , Fisher has .evidently and most perniciously been interfering with the ordinary course of the law. To this his colleagues naturally objected, and a majority evidently regarded his retirement as a necessity of the situation. Mr Fisher quite as though by no means wisely, objected ; and finding there was no help for it, he went with rather a bad grace. It looks as if he then gathered together all the actions of the Government which had elicited expressions of disapproval, from the public, ajad made, them* large questions of policy with which he differed, but to] which he evidently offered no objection, at the time. That is about the whole of it. ■ The last sentence of Mr Fisher's letter is a breach of good taste as gratuitous , as it is indefensible. "I retire " he says, "from a position which I have for some time past felt was becoming a false one, considering. the; .wide divergences of opinionjdeveloped, among Ministers on questions of principle,, and ,the strong personal differences,which have arisen between certain members of the]Cabinet,but in wl ich, happily, I have not been concerned." Surely, if Mr Fisher was not concerned, he might have left the personal differences of colleagues in the limbo of things unrevealed.

It seems that the Railway Board, after having been ,the best abused The Railway body in the colony, is likely Board. to become popular. It may be doubted whether it really will be so when" it proceeds I to carry put all the alterations which have been foreshadowed..^ These alterations are certain to conflict with the Dr^judices and private,, interests, of a,-,gpod jmany people, especially,' in country afetnoi^ignd $$ p &^ f they imp Toe jpdMQu'g^alteration^ they^are, .'fowfo^jr, jtLkelytoibejPQp^lar.; • j.Bujfcj however ,

[thatmay beritr.njay; befell asia mere' act pf i .justiceMiwait forifurther information before assigning t allj. the credfy „to. the t board. . It ; .would be an odd turn of affairs— and, it may be added, by no, means an ; unlikely one—, if it were found that to the much-condemned Maxwell the credit, whatever it may be worth, really-belongsr^Mr-rMaxwell was not , before a free agent.' He was but the permanent head of a Ministerial department, sub-,, ject as all departments are to political influences too strong for any official. But the board has been created to provide a means > of escape from such influences, .and Mr Maxwell, as a member of the board, has made his escape at .the same, tjme. Mr M'Kerrpw, inexperiepced as he is\in railway matters, is far too wise, a nian ,tp make radical alterations without the sanction of a colleague who has borne the responsibility of the con- . duct of our railways all these years. Similarly,tif Mr Maxwell suggested the improvements, Mr M'Kerrow is sharp enough to . recognise that .they are but the outcome of experience, and well worthy of a trial. If the proposed alterations turn out well the board will naturally get the credit, because j the board is new. If, on the other hand! ! they turn put badly with the public, the opprobrium'will fall on Mr Maxwell because he is not new. But whether it chances to be credit or opprobrium, the moving spirit in all the changes, we venture to predict,, will be found to be Mr Maxwell.