PROGRESS OF TARANAKI.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XL, Issue 9255, 3 December 1891, Page 2

PROGRESS OF TARANAKI.

A VISIT TO THE SETTLEMENTS TO

THE SOUTH. [by oob special oobbespondemt.] * Stratford is making progress. It has got beyond infancy, and is now making its way through that awkward period when the boy aspires to be and feels himself a man, but is not recognised as such by his fair acquaintances. It ia a trying period for the boy, and is equally trying for the town of magnificent distances, which has all the framework of a great city but wants a little more flesh to clothe with graceful outline its somewhat angular proportions. I see great changes gradually baing wrought by the process of settlement. The Provincial Governments in the past were not far wrong in laying out a big town. All that is wanted is a little time and patience, some Government expenditure, and lota of hard work in tho way of bush felling, and Stratford will be all there in the near future. On the strength of my visit 1 intend to invest in a town section. Not, however, those in the hands of private holders. I should be very sorry to deprive them of their future chances of the unearned increment. I wish to give the Government a fair show; obtain the land at first cost, and pocket the unearned increment myself. The Government felled and grassed the land some fifteen years ago. Tlie decaying work of time and the bush fires have removed most of the timber, so now I will step in and reap the benefit of public expenditure and encourage the Government to procc.d in the good work on the East Road. Talking about the East Road, I am told there is a hitch. So long as I can remember there has been a succession of hitches with respect to this East Road. The first hitch was that the Government (not tho present one) refused to confirm the purchase of the Toko and other blocks by the Civil Commissioner. Then because they refused, and others purchased, they do clined to spend public money on opening up a main line of road because it passed through private propertj*. Now, the Government which did such a foolish thing could not be called a wise Government, especi >lly in the opinion of an East Road settler, or even in the opinion of a " true blue" New Plymouthite. Yet there are people, 1 am informed, who worship the venerable past. If the East Road is in a state of uncivilisation, the same cannot be said of the Opunake Road. That road is being looked after by the local bodies, and is now metalled be3 r ond the Cardiff 1 Road, where the new cheese factory is situate, and there a c two etonecrushers actively at work extending the metalling for some additional miles. This road opens up the land on the southern slope of the Mountain, and cuts across the rivers and mountain spurs from Stratford in tho direction of Opunake, thus opening up the land right and left between the rivers which plough their way from the snow down the corrugations of Mount Egmont. Along the Opunake Road the road is a succession of hills, hollows, and siding', Along the cross roads it is a uniform incline, without ups and downs, and induces the belief that a different country has been penetrated. Tho character of the land is similar to the New Plymouth side, being a volcanic tufa, but evidently of a better character. It ia fine grazing land, and will no doubt produce good cheese and butter. Dairy factories are the one thing needful to make the land profitable to the occupier. The first requisite to this end is a leading metalled road, and this is to a certain extent possible by the " Loans to Local Bodies Act." Industry and nature will do the rest Mount Egmont may be looked on as a local endowment of a very permanent character. She, more powerful than dynamite explosions, provides the required rain to make the volcanic soil produce cheap grass to provide cheap cheese and butter. There ought to bo a dairy factory and a public, school in the centre of six mile circles all round tho glorious mountain. That would not bo a bad platform for the new Political Association. I make a free gift of the idea to both. I made a flying visit to the Cardiff, and a more leisurely one to the Stratford dairy factories. They are both built and worked on a similar principle. The first owned and worked by the farmeis in co operation, and tho other by a private firm. In both a good stock of cheese has been produced, and the work at present is equal to some 800 or 900 gals df milk daily, in round numbers equal to some 9001bs of cheese each per day. Being both managed by experts it may be taken for granted that the lamentable failures of the past will not be repeated, with respect to the production of cheese, but that a uniform and first class sample will be produced by these establishments. The establishment of dairy factories in the midst of small holdings ought to be the policy of the future with respect to the administration of our waste lande, for it is evident that with prosperous small holdings which dairy factories will ensure will considerably simplify all social questions whicn now involve settlement. Metallod roads will be possible because the holders can afford to pay rates, pcljools and civilisation wiU follow, and depression, that bane of farmer settlement, will become a thing of the past, and oven politics and political asso«iations will be forgotten, because people will b.e too well off even to grumble against f,he Government. Even thp harbour rate, if jt is not of herwjso deposed of, will be linppily 'forgotten, and buried fathoms deep in tho memory of the small holding capitalist. That, 4f any rate, is my opinion. The direction in "which we are travelling round the mountain, in over widening circles, for the grass is luxuriant in all the now forest clearings, and where grass is abundant it moans now-a-day money in a variety of ways,