THE COLONIAL COAL TRADE.

Timaru Herald, Volume IV, Issue 98, 30 March 1866, Page 5

THE COLONIAL COAL TRADE.

[From the Southern Cross.}

In the month of February, or rather m half of January and February, the export of coal from the port of Newcastle, m New South Wales, amounted to upwards of 40,000 tons. The value of the coal may be taken to be about ten shillings per ton at the port of shipment, ;md we thus arrive at the fact that during this one month the money actually paid for coal at this one port was twenty thousand pounds. The gold-fields of Otago aud of the West- Coast have done greater things than these, we may be told, and from one point of view the statement cannot be questioned. We have heard of forty thousand ounces of gold being shipped m a single month from these fields ; and of course this represents a vastly greater sum than forty thousand tons of coaL But there are other points of view from which the matter does not look quite the same. Gold it is quite true, is a wonderful means of prosperity to any country if rightly used. The mode of using it rightly, however, it is one of the most difficult problems to solve conceiveable. The effect of a gold export may be m part attributed to its suddenness. Let gold be found on the bleakest and must uninviting spot on earth, and it will soon be the abode of busy thousands. Let the mode of reaching it be the most dangerous possible, it presents no obstacle worthy of the name. Cities spring up with a mush oom growth m places where no oue could have expected to see them. People invest large sums m land whose intrinsic value is scarcely appreciable. Speculation of all kinds reigns supreme for a time over every business and every class of society, But the change does come inevitably m every case. Nature has not distributed her rarest treasures without a limit, and m nine cases out of ten that limit is soon reached. The huge export of gold falls off rapidly. From forty it falb to thirty, twenty, ten thousand ounces ; and still the total grows less and less, week by week, and month by month. The impression soon gains ground that the fields are worked out, and the mining population looks around m search of uuworked fields m some new direction. But things are not loft as they were. It is not a simple account showing on the one hand the total gains from a gold export, reaching millions of pounds, aud nothing on the other. Far from it. The gold has been dug and has been paid for, but a large part of tlie mouey has been embarked m speculations which are now found to have been worthless. Fortunes have been suddenly amassed, and those who got them have taken their easily got mouey and gone to England or Australia — m short to their homes. These gold-fields, while for the time they give a vast impetus to trade and commerce ; while they bring a large population, and beni-fit m many waj's the revenue of the country do not, as a rule, leave behind them permanent good effects at all commensurate with the vastness of their apparent profit. And all this must m fairness be taken into account m comparing them with other mineral discoveries m a country.

We have spoken of the coal export from Newcastle, m new South Wales. This is a subject of special interest for us, because we too have the promise of coal-nelds, excelleut iv quality, and almost inexhaustible m extent. The peculiarity of this mineral is the universality of its usefulness. True, the coal mine does not produce a rush to the spot. A few huts of no very pretentious appearance, a tramway of simple construction aud of no colossal proportions, a short wharf and a shoot at the end of it, take the place of the excited influx of population, the mushroom growth of cities, and the fever of excited speculation which attend the gold-field. But although its beginnings are thus small aud unpretending, it has the elements of a souuder commercial success than the other. The first months may show no great export ; and even the first year or two may make a poor show beside other articles of commerce ; but it has the grand advantage of almost unlimited expansion. Instead of bringing about a revulsion and a relapse, the coal mines of a new country are certain to become year by year a greater source of profit, both from external and internal sources. Commerce spriugs up m their train, and manufactures of all kinds follow as a necessary consequence. It would be a grand error to suppose that the 40,000 tons of coal exported from Newcastle, represented all the benefit which New South Wales derives from the mineral wealth. It is not even represented l>y the large carryiug trade, by the great amount of shipping which it employs, although this is no trifling consideration. But it is the vast impulse which it gives to all sorts of useful manufactures at home ; it is the means

which it places at the disj>osal of every trade of doing its work well and cheaply ; it is, m short, the power which it lends to everything, that makes it so truly important to a young country. And on this ground it is, that we think it more than capable of comparing with a goldfield, m the permanent advantages which it ofiVrs.

We need not say that it would be a matter of great consequence to this province if we could secure an export of anything like £20,000 a month. This, however, is not all that we look forward to when we think of our vast and valuable coal-fields. "We hope to see something done ere long to make not one, butmany of these available ; and when this is done, we do not think we shall have lons to wait for the realization of part at least, of our visions of progress and energetic action m this province. These things are not secured m a day ; but with the raw material, so readily at our command as it evidently is, we see no reason why some part of it should not be utilized ere long. Private enterprize must do the work of course ; but there is no doubt that private enterprize will be richly rewarded, and that the public will largely participate m the advantages reaped by the few. New Zealand alone may soon yield as large a market for our coal as New South Wales now does for that of Newcastle. When we reach this point, and we see no reason why we need be long m doing so, we shall not have cause to envy any province its wealthy goldfields.