LESSONS OF SLUMP IN 1888

Taranaki Daily News, 13 September 1934, Page 14

LESSONS OF SLUMP IN 1888

HOW IT WAS OVERCOME. Forty-five years ago the Dominion had not a third of the population it has today, but times were bad, and there was an unemployment problem. A Government return at the time showed that the number of men out of employment in New Zealand was 237, against 779 in August, 1888, a year before. This satisfactory result, says an exchange, was attributed to the development of the flax industry, the refusal of the Government to put single men on relief work in the ’owns, and the extension of industries of various kinds. Ii was at this time that the colony suffered a loss of 10,000 of its population who left chiefly for Australia. It was a sad commentary for the colonists to realise that the surplus of emigration over immigration for two years was 9580. It was said at the time that when things improved every person who had gone away would bring back two with him, and that the country would go forward 'by leaps and bounds. That was ■ true to a very large extent, because hundreds of those who left New Zealand in a year or two found their way back here, and by going into the backblocks and taking up land, which the Government offered at 30s per acre, became prosperous. The settlement of bush areas in central Taranaki in from Stratford, on what was called the East road, is one of the romances of our colony’s development, because from that time on till recent years prosperity was assured those who were young enough to take the plunge and do some of the finest colonising ever done in this country.