Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Auckland Provincial District]

The Future

The Future.

The future of the Auckland province, and especially of the northern portion of it, is frequently discussed as a matter of very grave concern. The two main industries of that part of the province—kauri gum and kauri timber—are necessarily vanishing quantities, and, though the present rapid rate of digging the one and cutting the other may be kept up, and even accelerated for some years, prudent colonists are asking questions and making calculations as to the possible duration of the supplies and the probable effect on the prosperity of the province, when these supplies eventually run short. The two industries are of about equal magnitude; but their conditions are different in a marked degree. Whereas the timber page 32 is but partially exported, and the export is mainly if not wholly confined to Australia, the gum is almost entirely dependent on the English and American markets. In regard to the kauri timber, therefore, it may reasonably be assumed that its price will rise with its scarcity, the competition being mainly between kauri and other timbers, which also are vanishing, though somewhat less rapidly. This will, of course, mean a gradually diminishing output, regulated, on the one hand, by the lessened demand consequent on the increased price, and, on the other, by an increasing reluctance among forest-owners to deal with their standing trees. The prospect of this increase, no matter how gradual it may prove to be, is of course, the reverse of pleasing, but the absence or suddenness is a redeeming feature of great importance to all concerned—the workmen, their employers, and the general public.

The price of kauri gum unquestionably cannot be expected to rise to any appreciable extent simply by reason of its own scarcity. While kauri gum is used almost exclusively for the manufacture of varnish, varnish is by no means made exclusively from kauri gum. If it were, from eight thousand to nine thousand people would not be working hard all the year round for a gross income of about four hundred thousand pounds a year—an average of less than fifty pounds each. Nothing more need be said to show that the price of kauri gum is not greatly affected by the difficulties of obtaining it. That its marketable value fluctuates is true, but the causes of fluctuation are almost entirely outside itself. Any stipulation on this side of the world for an appreciable rise in prices, without a corresponding improvement in quality, would be met, not by a decreased, but a decreased demand. Prices may so rise at any time as to wonderfully improve the profits in the gum industry, or they may so fall as to kill the industry in a few months. Similar disasters have happened, and must continue to happen in industries wherein competition is world-wide. When the price of copper fell very rapidly from £120 per ton to an exact third of that sum, thousands of copper-miners in Australia and elsewhere were deprived of a livelihood; and it was a source of but little satisfaction to those thus deprived to know that copper-mining was being pursued more vigorously and more profitably
Mount Ruapehu.

Mount Ruapehu.

page 33 than ever in other and distant parts of the world. But while a sudden collapse of the gum industry is, from outside causes, always possible, the probabilities of such a catastrophe are, fortunately, remote, and there are good grounds for assuming that, though scarcity will be powerless to raise prices for a gradually decreasing supply, the cessation of inducements for gum diggers to continue their poorly-paid work will not be too sudden to admit of a more or less gradual decline of the industry, and the absorption of the greater part of the liberated labour.

That every reasonable effort should be made to prepare for these contingencies is admitted on all sides, and there is a consensus of opinion that the opening up of the country by roads and railways would soon place Auckland beyond dependence on her declining industries. Important as these industries undoubtedly are, and disastrous as their sudden cessation would assuredly be, they are not, after all, the life of the province. Both Auckland and Aucklanders are fitted for something not only more lasting, but also more elevating than sawing timber or digging for either gum or gold, and the truest friends of the province are unanimous in their desire to see a much larger proportion of its population devoted to the nobler branches of husbandry—those branches which admit of the highest standard of ideal family life, and, in that way, make for stability, permanence and irresistible power of progression.

With climatic conditions which the world can hardly beat, with natural wonders all her own, with millions of acres of virgin land, with a sturdy, patriotic population determined to succeed and able to supply all its own real needs, with a history proving its power to turn even misfortunes to good account, and with a host of other advantages many of which even this somewhat extended article has failed to enumerate, the Provincial District of Auckland, exercising reasonable prudence and forethought, may look with confidence to the developments of the future, well assured of a prosperous career, and for the succeeding generations of its people, a goodly inheritance.

”Kilbryde,” The Residence Of Dr. Logan Campbell.

Kilbryde,” The Residence Of Dr. Logan Campbell.