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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 23

[introduction]

From mere lack of space New Zealand can never attain to greatness from pastoral or agricultural operations alone; but from her mineral wealth, her enormous extent of seaboard compared with her area, from her magnificent harbours, her climate, and moderate fertility of soil a combination has been and is forming which justifies her boast of being the Britain of the South. She is the natural birthplace and training-school of seamen, and of seamen of the very best kind, men able to take their vessels anywhere upon the seas, and gifted with a mercantile shrewdness engendered by constant communication with traders and cultivated by habits of self-control and command of others. In the mosquito fleet of New Zealand there are hundreds of men who are the equal of the adventurous pioneers of old, and who lack but new worlds to explore to attain to equal fame with their forerunners. Allied with our seamen are our shipwrights, who have built the mosquito fleet, and are now turning out moderately-sized steamers in every seaboard city in New Zealand, besides every description of smaller craft. Our runholders and squatters have taken up nearly every acre of Native grassed-land which will support sheep or great cattle, and must be prepared to surely, if slowly, give way to the denser population-supporting industry of agriculture, which in its turn page 40 may be pressed upon by the demand for land for more valuable purposes from a revenue-producing point of view. Our goldmines are still keeping up a good total return, while our coalfields are at last being systematically worked and appreciated, though how grievously we fail in fully utilizing them the sequel will show. On all sides factories are springing up, and from every quarter of the colony specimens are shown of skill and power of production in numberless ways, which all point to a speedy future of greatness. Still more encouraging is the trade that is being developed with other lands, and the high commercial standing of our merchants, for at the outset we must admit that our true destiny is to be factors and manufacturers for others, and that—while we might support a limited population from within, so bounteous has Nature been in the variety of her gifts to us—we can only become a populous country by becoming closely allied with other lands, and by conserving our forces to the highest possible degree. For instance, in the timber trade, at the present rate of export of baulk timber our supply will speedily become exhausted; but by working timber up in the colony and exporting it in a manufactured state it will last indefinitely, and will give a hundred times the advantage it otherwise would to us as a colony. In almost all other products the same principle applies, and it will be endeavoured to be shown that the development of our industries is best achieved by working up our natural products to the highest state of efficiency before parting with them to the merchant or consumer.

It will be convenient to divide our subjects into three main heads: First, products; second, the manufacture of products; third, the manufacture of articles for which the material must be imported; fourth, the means of extending these three to the best advantage.

Hard-and-fast rules by which to attain these ends cannot be laid down—the subject is so many-sided, there are so many conflicting interests to consider, and so many debatable political theories involved, that it would be impossible to frame a mere code which would find even moderate acceptance. The answer to the question, "How shall a young and healthy child be developed into a powerful and sagacious man?" would almost answer the question involved in our subject, yet who would lay down an iron rule for this with any hope of finding general page 41 approval. The race from which the child sprang, its environments, and its personal characteristics would all have to be considered; and so it is with our colony. But, while compelled to admit that certain and specific measures cannot be prescribed, we shall be careful to avoid abstract principles or mere theoretical or political discussion.

Taking, then, the products in the order in which they are at the present time most important, in a monetary point of view, we treat first of all of