NEW ZEALAND'S COMPETITORS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 11696, 22 July 1890, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND'S COMPETITORS.

<• Dr Grace, speaking on the Address-in-Eeply in the Legislative Council, said ;— Our exports are our only wealth. Ihis is an indisputable proposition. Our competitors are— first, California for cereals, ■wool, and Buch-like things. In California wages are lower and the hours of labour longerthan they are here. We have to deal with the Argentine Bopublic, where two millions of Italian labourers are permanently settled, and whore no labour organizations exist, where the wages are very small indeed, and where the hours of toil are very long. In connection with the Argentine Republic aa acompetifcor it is as well for us to look carefully to our financial position. The total debt of the Argentino Republic, provincial and general, was £48,600,000 on the 21st September, 1889, and its total outgoing interest .£3,619,000. The indebtedness of Australasia, including New Zealand I will give the details if they are wanted— is £159,605,000, with an annual outpoint* interest of .£7,115,000 : that is, our debt in .these waters is vastly mote than double that of the Argentine Republic, and our interest is nearly double. Our population in these colonies is four millions, and the||population of! the Argentine Bepublio is four millions. They haye an annual increase, by immigration, of two hundred thousand persons, and we have an annual increase of twenty thousand. They possess at the present moment twenty-eight million cattle, and we possess fifteen million. They possess eighty-five million sheep, and we bosses seventy-five million. So that they hare the same population, thoy owo one-half the money, and their wafio is about half 2-ffl Ur v I r PUt th6Se fl & Ures *° sl ">^ the difficulty of our competing with a power of this kind in exports to a free market I and these are the kind of faots which I hope will l-Dceive consideration.