THE KAURI GUM INDUSTRY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2300, 31 March 1898, Page 11

THE KAURI GUM INDUSTRY.

IMPORTANT RECOMMENDATIONS BY THE COMMISSIONERS. AN EXPORT DUTY SUGGESTED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, March 24. The report of the Kauri Gum Commissioners has been presented, aoci from ie I cull the following interesting extracts : — The guoifie'.ds north of Auckland City comprise 724,000 acre?, and those south of Auckland 90,000 acres ; — total, 814,000 acres. This area consisfcn cf 435,000 acres of Crown^ landp, 166,000 acres of native lands, aDd 213,000 acres of private lands held by Natives or Europeans. Jt is possible this area will be augmented. The cry for the past 20 years ha.3 been lhab the product was nearly exhausted, but at the present day the output is nearly as great aud the price higher than ever it was. The commissioners express profound regret that an industry which up to 1597 yielded s. product for expot'a to the value of £8,162,945 has not been made to contribute anything to the revenue of the country although the procuring of that product involved the destruction of the little soil available -and necessitated a large State expenditure on roads to the towns and ports. The persons engaged in procuring gum are the diggers proper, but settlers supplement their earnings by diggings, and the Maoris take to it when their crops fail or provisions become exhausted. For digging gum on Crown lands a fee of 5i has been charged in years past. Its collection was left to the county councils, who with one exception abandoned the collection as not; worth the expense incurred in making it. From £1 to £7 10a is charged for niiniog on private lands. Areas of the land are owned by absentees, and the commissioners were urged to recommend its rej.urcb«se by the Government for the bemfis of the industry. They cannot recommend a large expenditure for that purpose. Wherever these absentee areas contain a fair proportion of cultivatable land they suggest, however, that purchases should bs made at » reasonable cost to enable the diggers to establish permanent homes. The first requirement for f uccpssfu! settlement is the road communication, and this is kepb in the worst; possible utato, owing to the damage done by the gum traffic. In many cases ifc costs £3 lo £3 10.3 per ton to cart the gum to the town or seaport for seven months of the year, while 15s a ton would be remunerative to the carter if the roads were good. This means that the cost of living to the digger would ba reduced by abcufe Is 6d per wwk, and the carriage of his gum by 3s per cwfc. Abuses exist in connection with the gum industry as the result of the want of proper administration. Thus the custom of burning off the tea tree and fern to clear the ground renders useless large areas of ground, as the fire consumes the rootlets, pulverises the little noil there is, and then ashes aDd foil are carried &way by the wind, and there is nothing but the hare white pipclay left on many s 1 retches of gum land. This is to be deplored, as experiynents in grass growing over the gum areas have proved successful. The experiments made by Mr T. C. Williams, of Wellington, in growing gorse for sheep feed on the gum area are referred to approvingly, it bring pointed out 'bat land which hitherto failed to carry a sheep to !he acre ba= besn made with gorse to cavrv five aid six. The commissioners suggest that the Government ought to follow up the?e experiments. They a'so suggest that a heavy floe ".hould atttch lo diggeis burning off more than a square chain at a tiroe. The planting of trees of suitable varieties by the Government is ako urged. After dealing with the possibilities of the ,-mrr>fields in the future if systematic methods ■Ire resorted to, the commiasionere urge the imposition of an export dnty "for the purpose of compensating the north to acme extent for the great losses suffered in the past through the gum industry and ; to enable the different counties to construct j much-needed roads." They cannot reommend, ! as urged, the setting apart of different blocks of J gum lands for particular sections of the community. Reference is made to the fact that supplies for the diggers are not obtained from the local farmers, but consist of tinned meat, tinned butter, tinned fish, tinned milk, &c. The Austrians on the fields are describsd as hardy, sober, industrious, law-abiding people. This character is given to them everywhere by all concerned. They send much money home to enable their relatives to come out. Many of the young men are here to escape military service in their own country. Many of them make from £3 to £5 a week. _ They work in gangs from dawn to dark— in the summer in the swamps, in the winter on the hills. Tiey scrape the gum afc night. The Auslrians live frugally at first, but eventually they sp?nd as much in food as the British digger. The evidence tends to prove that there is no contract on the parb of any person to supply labour to the gumfields. There is reason to believe that out of the 1500 Austrians located in the colony 1000 have banking accounts (some of these being from £500 to £800) besides the large amounts sent to Austria to assist immigration or otherwise. Calculated on a given basis, the commissioners estimated that the 1500 Austrian diggers would s»ve £1500 a week, or £78,000 per annum. That a large amount of this money is exported is proved, some of it through the ignorance of the Dalmatians as to profitable investment in the colony. Referring to the diffeient complaints made against the Anetrians lha commissioners say: — "The difficulty caused by t'ae pets.-nee of these foreigners cannot be meb without serious j consideration. The cry of the uutbJukiDg tli*t

I a poll tax should be levied on the Austrian j immigrants ia unworthy cf uotice. The bond iof international reciprocity between Great I Britain and Austria would ab once prevent such a solution being seriously considered." The tide of foreign immigration, it is suggested, should be turned into profitable channels. The Austrians would make admirable settlers could we utilise the qualities they at present display. If blocks of land of good quality were set apart for them, out of which they could make their homes, many of them would doubtless turn their knowledge of wine and olive culture to gcod account. If during part of the year they went on the gnmfields, and devoted the rest of tbeir time to their farms, their industry would fiad a legitimate outlet instead J of subtracting from the resources of the colony. I The eomaiißsioners suggest the translation of I our land 1-tws into Dalmatian with this end in j view. Whether such a scheme is approved or , cot; some means must be adopted to prevent tbe spread of such immigration, as the supply of both gum and land is by no means inexhaustible. They advise that after a given date — ?ay, six tnoachs hence,— no person <-xc£pt s settler be allowed to hold a gum digger's lioeuae till after a 12 months' residence iin the colony. Tno pressing nature of the ! Austrian difficulty is urged, and as an instance '. it is pointed out that 400 Ausbrians are at present campei at Maugawhai, and if they remain there another season all the gum will be swept away, aud it will be idle for the j settlers to dig for that material near their • holdings hi the future, which ineiins that many \ of them will have to abandon their farms. j The commissioners see no remedy for the j truck system ou the gumfields. Lengthy ] reference is, however, made to the methods ; resorted to by the storekeepers and liquorsellers to squeeze their clients into dealing with ' them at their own pries. The fact is men- , tioned that in places the diggers are known as | the "publicans' working bullocks," and the \ conclusion is arrived -at that such a stats of j things needs remedying ; and if the provisions i of the Truck Act be not made applicable to ' buyers and sellers of gum lest; the honest store- • Iteeper be unable lo recover the value of goods supplied, at least there should be ensured to • the digger the certainty that aftar winning the gum he could on demand obtain in cash its value less the price of the stores already suppled ( to him. The necessity is urged of some better ; system of weighing gum, as instance* were given , of many pounds in the hundred weight bsing j pilfered from the seller of gum by means of improved balances and scales. After enumerating the variou3gums produced and their market value*, they say: — "Ksuri j gum commands a supremacy in the market, but j tbe ever-increasing demand ia without doubt exhausting the known sources of supply. The commissioners again urge an export duty, and state that if £3 a ton duly had been t-xaeted in the past £110.997' duby would have accrued to the revenue. Reference is made to the practice of London merchants of removing the best samples in packages, aad destroying marks cr brands for the purpose of concealing the names of exporters, and putting j up good lots with inferior locs to lower the sale | price, and the suggestion is made that officers j should be appointed to grade the gum and collect the export duty. The commissioners conclude that the only means of preventing ruinous fluctuation* in the price of gum is to make the industry a Government monopoly and place i!; undsr the control of the administrators of the colony, though they by uo means offer this as a recommendation. They do recommend, however, that the export duty should be a graded duty from £3 per ton on the middle quality to £5 or higher on the more valuable kinds. As lo the assertion that a number of old men would be thrown on charitable aid by the export duty, the commissioners abate that they cruld nob in their travels find more than 50 old men fchis could refer j to. They contend that in the case of j a unique article like kauri gum the dufcy would j fall on the consumer ; bub in any case, esti- j mating the old man affected at 75, and the assistance given in charitable aid at 5* a week, J it would only amount to £975, whereas tbe ex- j port duty would yield about £21,0C0 per j annum. Amongst the detailed suggestions | made by the commissioners is one that no holder of a publican's license should be allowed to deal in kauri gum.