Wanganui Herald. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1884. M. DE HARVEN.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 5494, 13 December 1884, Page 2

Wanganui Herald. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1884. M. DE HARVEN.

The movements of this gentleman, who has arrived in the colony for the purpose of seeing for himself what prospects of a successful Belgian settlement exist io. New Zealand, have been duly recorded by the Press Association's telegrams, and we find that Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch have been duly visited, and no doubt shewn to be the best possible parts of the colony for the object of M. De Harven's mission to be located in, whilst this part of it has been ignored, and its undoubted suitability kept out of sight. True our Industrial Association have invited M. De Harven to come to Wanganui and deliver a lecture on beetroot culture and the flax industry as they exist in Belgium. Had the Association instructed their Secretary to write to M. De Harven, setting out the special suitability of this district for the purposes of that gentleman's mission, and invited him to come up here and see for himself, they would have been acting with something akin to common sense, and would have done the place some service. It is not too late to rectify the omission even now, and we hope Mr Filmer will be authorised to do so at once, as there can be no question as to the large and immediate benefits the town and district would reap from any organised special settlement of the kind M. De Harven is out here to see about establishing. The up-river lands and several large blocks up the coast now lying idle would be most suitable sites for such special settlements, and we feel sure their moderate price would at once recommend them to M. De Harven, in preference to any of the blocks he can have seen either up North or down South.

The Belgians are a sober, thrifty race, and have made their own country one of the most prosperous in Europe, but population is now so dense there that an exodus is imperative, as there are 6,000,000 of people to 7,000,000 acres of land, of which only one-eighth is uncultivated. Agriculture in Belgium has reached a very high standard, and the cultivation of cereals, flax, tobacco, and potatoes have been carried to the greatest pitch of excellence. It will be therefore easily understood that as colonists the Belgians would be just the people to take up and bring into profitable cultivation some of our waste lands that are now lying idle and unproductive. As a manufacturing country, Belgium stands very high, indeed it has been running England very hard in the iron and textile fabric trades for some years, sending immense quantities of its manufactured products into that country at a price our Home manufacturers could not profitably compete against. The Belgians are therefore in every way a suitable people for opening up our manufacturing industries, and would no doubt be the stepping-stone to a large direct trade from New Zealand to their own fatherland, in which there is an almost unlimited demand for our staple products wool, grain, and frozen meats. We trust therefore that M. De Harven will not be allowed tojeave New Zealand without having a proper opportunity afforded him of examining a part of it that has been allowed on all hands to be peculiarly adapted for associated settlements, several of which, such as the Feilding and Sandon, have long been successfully doing good work in producing revenue for the further opening up of the colony to profitable occupation. Immigration of the De Harven type is the very kind required at this important juncture as it would in no wise interfere with the labor market or intensify the unemployed difficulty, as the Belgians would be at once placed on their own settlements and be assisted by their own Government to tide over the first year or two of their colonial life, until time had been afforded them to get firmly established in their new homes. If but one settlement, of a couple of hundred families were established near here, it would prove a most valuable aid to the progress of this district, which sadly wants some such stimulus to lift it out of the dull rut it has got into of late, as it would pave the way for a rapid extension of settlement and help on the good work of opening up the back country now lying idle, for want of hands and capital to reclaim it from the wilderness.