NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4851, 27 April 1901, Page 2

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

' employs itself in shaping the future and towards that end concerns itself actively with the present. No attempt haa ever been made here to retain as permanent accretions to the population those people whom the temporary periods of prosperity in the mining industry have attracted periodically daring tho last d> z<m years. When the term of industrial activity ceased or had exhausted itself they were allowed to drift away to other places. There was no inducement held out to them to remain in the district. There was no land to settle on, no local industry to employ them. In 1891 there was considerably over a thousand people within the borough; five years subsequently the number had fallen to 996. The balance of the population had drifted away, " cleared out " to other places that offered better prospects of employment. Is this to ocour again P Indeed, it may be pointedly aßked : What is there to prevent it again occurring ? The conditions that have conduced to the present industrial prosperity are not of a .permanent charaoter, and when they diminish or disappear what is to take their place ? Is the state of things experienced in 1896 and for Borne years | afterwards again to repeat itself—industrial stagnation, a village population, with the accompanying business decay P This most assuredly is the prospect unless land for settlement is provided, which would be followed by the establishment of 'dairy factories and other local industries The question is on* that vitally concerns all classes of people in the district, not alone the farmers but the business people, but of th 9 latter it must be said that though afforded more than one opportunity they have shown very little interest in this question.

POPULATION AMD BIRTHS, DBATHS,ANI MARKIA6ES.

Though ifc is not possible to ascertain with anything approaching exaoti- > tude, from the official returns, the effect of births and deaths on the population of the borough of Lawrence, yet the subjoined table, showing the birtha.deaths and marriages in the Gabriels district, which includes, in addition to Lawrence, Waitahuus, Blue Spur, and Beaumont districts, will convey a very fair idea of the extent to which the population of the town is recruited from the natural increase in the community. By-the-way, the strangely arbitrary and eccentric manner in which the births, compared with the marriages, rise and fall must not be missed, The following is the table : —

The question has often been asked, and variously answered, whether national prosperity or adversity affects the nanber of marriages contracted in a given period. 16 is, however, generally admitted thai in periods of prosperity the matrimonial market is brisk. From the above figures it is clear that, compared with 1895 and 1897 there was obviously a boom in the marriage market from 1898 up to -and including 1900 — three years that correspond with the indus* trial turn of the tide, the transition from comparatively hard times to a state of prosperity unprecedented for many years. The startling jump in 1896 is difficult of explanation, except on the assumption that it was a leap year, as is also the disheartening drop. in the following year from 18 to 11 marriages. Theo, again, for further and absolutely hopeless involvement in perplexity, if in 1895 the industrial outlook was so dark and forbidding that only 10 couples could muster the necessary nerve to face the music, how comes it that the births in that year were greater than* those of 1899, wfiich had exaotly .twice the number of marriages, and were not far behind those of ISOO which had twice and a-quarter more marriages? Of course the question is not put with the serious - intention of * eliciting an answer — merely to direct attention to what is now regarded as quite the proper thing in all well regulated matrimonial establishments. In the six years given above there were 99 marriages and in the same period 385 births — a fraotion under four births to each marriage, which, accordingto M. Zola in his " JPruitfuless," is the ideal family iv France, and the French are a decadent people. However, it is something to have so effectually at* tamed this nice sense of proportion. Taking the deaths (220) during Che six years tabulated above from the births (385) in the same period we get an increase of 165 in the population, or an. increase of 27| a year. If we add to tho deaths the departures from the district it will be evident that we cannot hope for any great accession to our population from the birth-rate of the district.

THE POPULATION Oi 1 LAWRENCE,

The population of Lawrence, as shown by the census just taken, is 1,159 or 163 more than it was in 1896, when bhe previous census was taken. We have, during the last eight or ten years, come up close in the vioinity of the figures revealed by the most recent census only to fall again in the course of a year or two to a startlingly low and depressing figure. For instance, in 1893 the population was 1,026, but as the conditions that produced this comparatively large total disappeared the figures fell year by year until in 1896, that is an interval of five years, the census showed the population to be 996. Again, in 1898, improved industrial conditions having once more returned, the population in the course of two years rose to 1,010 —a small increase of 14 in two years. In the following year, 1899, the estimated population of Lawrence was 1,050, or 109 below its present number. Since then the development of the dredging industry throughout the district has provided employment for a large nnmber of workingmeu. These, though scattered throughout the district, in Waipori and other places, have in a number of cases made Lawrence their headquarters and located their families here. The result is evident in the number of houses that have been built during the last twelve months and the promptness with which occupiers have been found for them. But however satisfactory this increase in the population may be deemed a little reflection must show that Lawrence, as the seat of the first gold discoveries, the principal as well as the oldest town in the Otago goldfields, at one time the centre of a large population, great mineral wealth and great industrial enterprise and activity has not fulfilled the promise of its early days. But id must be always remembered that the prosperity of all goldmining centres is at the best but transient — passing by graduated downward steps to its fitful and uncertain middle stages and thence to the succeeding intervals of alcnoßC Utter stagnation and feeble industrial revivals such as the fluctuating population for the different periods during the last ten years discloses,

POPULATION AND INDUSTRIES.

A district or a country that leans for support or sustenance on a single industry will not advance very far in years before ifc has been sharply reminded of its mistake. The vast mineral wealth of the district bas done much for Lawrence, but Lawrence has done very little for itself except to adhere to the ancient hope, with something like Oriental tenacity, that there was still a great future before the district. This is, no doubt, a very comforting optimism, but it is a poor and worthless substitute for that practical public spirit thafr

carriages. J Birth is. I Deaths. .895 .896 .897 .898 .899 10 18 11 15 20 60 70 66 68 53 40 30 29 85 48