The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 1879.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 13 June 1879, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 1879.

Under the heading, " wanted 2,000 English Email farmers to transfer their onpital to New Zealand," tho Welling-

ton Evening Chronicle has made some valuable ami sensible suggestions : " Tho manufacturing industries of England avo (writes our contemporary) iu a deploiablo condition, and the state of the agricultural industries is fully as gloomy. Out of ten seasons ending with 1878, thore wore six. bad. Bcasous, four of thorn being successive. Tho farmers in Australasia :uo wont to complain severely if they lmvo oue bad'harvest. They can therefore imagine what must bo tho wretchedness of that country whore four bad seasons have succeeded one another. The farmer in England has to pay high rates no matter wlmt kind of harvest ho gots. His laborers cannot afford to submit to a reduction in their wages. Under audi circumstances he should be eager to seizo the opportunity of emigrating to a country whore he might obtain land as good as that which he has been tilling at home, the fee simple of which would cost Mm I 110 more than he would have to pay his | Englishlandlord for a single year's rent. The future of the English farmer is indeed a gloomy one. The seasons may improve, but he can never again hope for prices which will enable him to moro than eke out a miserable subsistence after paying his high rent, his wages, and the other expenses incidental to his calling. The export of American corn to England is ..now assuming vast proportions. Last year it was forty million bushels greater than in the preceding year. The present year will show a similar increase on last year, and so on for many a year to come ; for every season wide areas of new land are being put under the plough in America.; Then, again, the export to England from the various colonies of Australasia is a constantly increasing quantity. The farmer in. ! California, and tho farmer in Australasia can, owing to more favorable climatic conditions, raise much better wheat than their confreres in England can produce, and they can, moreover, land it in England cheaper than tho English farmer can grow it, for not only have they no high rents to pay, but their taxes are much lower than those of tho English agriculturist, and they have, moreover, 110 expensive manures to pay for. It is true that wages in, England are low, but any one who is conversant with farming m England must bo aware that notwithstanding this fact it costs far more to farm an acre of land in England than it doc 3 in California or Australia, leaving the question of rent out of consideration altogether. But it is not alone in the grain market that the English fanner is assailed, with keen foreign competition. Shipload after ship-load of beef is arriving from America. This beef is almost, if not fully, as good as that raised in: England, and of course it is much cheaper. Though the beef export from America is yet in its infancy, it has already seriously interfered with the. profits of the English farmer. What then may we expect ten years heiice, when that export will have assumed huge proportions ? The outlook at homo is so I dismal that the English farmer must cast many a longing glance towards those " lands of promise," the British colonies in the distant South. The tenant farmers of England number half a, million, they hold thirty million acres of land, pay forty-five millions sterling per a.nnnm in rent, and own three hundred millions sterling of capital. Now it seems to its that it would be greatly advantageous to not only England, but to New Zealand, could, say a couple of thousand of these English agriculturists be induced to remove their capital to this country. These menareall skilled farmers, and tho influence they would exercise in improving the rude styleofcultivation nowpractised inNew ] Zealand would be in the highest degree beneficial. In this colony, many of tho farmers knew nothing about cultivation as an art before they settled on the lands which they now occupy. Their husbandry is consequently of the most unskilful description. Were a couple of thousand skilled farmers to settle in the colony, the quality of the tilling throughout the whole of New Zealand would in the course of a decad© bd very perceptibly in,proved, Example is the best of teachers. Moreover, the thing .which this splcn did 'country most requires at tho present, is an influx of capital. It would Ibe hard to over-estimate the advan [.tages which would aocrua to New Zea-

awwd wers) ivj .lot rh« | I#na»i* to b< -»ij tho'f capita! Ssare, and sr. our rich ai.»bl« lan«rs r Thf-y two fcLoiisaisu t'ariih'iu woiM&JJive employment to at least tan AesiSd agricultural laborers, The fames® and their workmen, with the .wives and families of both, would re-i | present hu increase of from forty thousand to fifty thousand to our popn-. ktion, and ■ an augmentation to the revenue of the State of about two hundred thousand pounds a year. Wo do not think it would he possible for tho Government of this colony to expend money'more-wisely or more pliil-' antliropieally than in trying to carry out the scheme which wo have to uglily sketched."