A Necessary Glance Backward.

Before going into details of further settlement upon small farms, it is well to look backward on New Zealand's economic evolution. The welfare of the country is broadly based on grassland farming, which the refrigerator—facilitating the export of perishable produce to far-distant markets—has largely promoted. During a long period of years, particularly since the invention of the refrigerator, New Zealand has devoted increasing amounts of capital and energy to the development of farming.

Necessarily associated with that expansion of farming was the progressive policy of public works (State and Local)—railways, roads, harbours, electric power, and so on—which called for the raising of many millions of money, chiefly loans from London.

Simultaneously, with a large investment of public money, directly and indirectly, in connection with land settlement, private capital is also largely involved. Altogether, the whole financial and commercial life of the country has become intimately bound up with the farming industries.