Agriculture.

From a population-supporting point of view this industry is the most important in the colony, as the following figures will show: Persons engaged in agricultural and pastoral pursuits, 54,447; in mechanical pursuits, 17,602; in working and dealing in textile fabrics, 11,930; in working and dealing in food and drink, 7,063; in animal and vegetable substances, 4,872; in minerals, 22,710; in undefined labour, 17,822: total, 136,446.

The foregoing figures combine the pastoral and agricultural occupations, and I can get no separate returns. Still, I think it is sufficient for our purpose. Grain is the chief article of export that gives statistical importance to agriculture. In 1867 we imported wheat and flour to the value of £145,959 more than we exported; and in 1882, fifteen years afterwards, the exports exceeded the imports by £839,297. In 1884 we exported £436,728, and imported only £1,100. A duty of 9d. per 1001b. has been imposed since 1879. Nearly the whole of this quantity comes from Canterbury and Otago (see Table). Of oats, we exported in 1884 £267,286 worth, the supply coming from the same provinces; and the import was only £74.

These returns are truly magnificent, and would lead one naturally to believe that agriculture, especially grain-growing, is the truest and best industry of the colony. But, while it is a page 64 matter for congratulation that the colony should be producing the whole of its breadstuffs, and exporting so largely of its surplus production, it is hardly true of the colony generally that agriculture is a profitable or favourite occupation for the native-born youths and men. In Canterbury and Otago soil, climate, and accessibility assist the grain-grower, railways carry his grain, and the land is easily brought under crop. Elsewhere, but especially in the North Island, the complaint is general that farming does not pay. The want of means of transit to market preyents the small farmer from making the same profit from his labour that the other toilers do, and there is not the natural facilities for farming on a large scale that there is in the South Island. It is a fact that in the North the native-born youths are averse to farming, and prefer to get near the towns if possible. Nor are they at all to be blamed for this, but rather praised for, brought up on a farm, they grow up in ignorance, which they bitterly feel when brought into contact with those from the towns. Their eyes are then opened to the easier and more money-commanding life that others lead: with the result that they centre towards towns at the first opportunity. Moreover many parents encourage this feeling, and cvince great repugnance to bringing up their sons to the hard life they have themselves endured. It is difficult to conceive a life more miserable to an intelligent youth than the drudgery of an unprofitable farm.

Unfortunately many of the farms in the northern portion of the Auckland Province must be classed as unprofitable, and are only occupied because the owners do not know where else to go to and make a fresh start. After an absence of nearly twenty years I rode the other day from Mahuramgi to Mangawai, and the district had actually retrograded from the condition it was in after the first two years of its settlement. There were no roads passable for drays in wet weather, places where former settlers had tried to make homesteads were deserted, the number of settlers had actually decreased, and, were it not for the money circulated by the gum-diggers, and some timber export, the whole country would have been desolate.. Near all the towns there are splendid evidences of good farming, carried on in an apparently successful manner, and where dairy produce of all kinds finds a ready sale at remunerative prices. The failures so far have chiefly been where the attempt has been made to page 65 settle in "the bush," where, from distance and want of means of transit, what was grown could not be sold at prices that would pay. The great fact, however, remains that, except perhaps in Canterbury and Otago, the population will not prefer husbandry while they can get anything better; and that "better" will be afforded by the development of manufactures, trades, and trading. There will always be a sufficiency of farmers; but, if New Zealand fulfils her destiny, the proportion of agriculturists will be less than it is at present.

Outside the large grain-growers the most successful farmers are the makers of dairy produce; and evidence is not wanting that systematic improvement in this department is being made. The dairy factories of New Zealand are increasing in number, and the meat-preserving companies are offering inducements to dairy farmers to send their produce to them. Ashburton and other New Zealand cheese is worth £65 a ton in London, while it has fetched as high as £3 11s. 6(1. per cwt. At Edendale, Ashburton, Wanganui, Greytown, Carterton, Woodville, and other places cheese factories are in full operation. Butter factories are also springing up, with, so far, satisfactory results. The great aim should be to produce a really first-class article, and allow no temptation of present gain to encourage the export of second-rate goods. The skill and attention this branch of farming is receiving is shown by a perusal of the weekly provincial papers, in which a large space is devoted to the subject, and valuable hints and suggestions constantly thrown out.

Of course successful dairy-farming is, like other branches, dependent upon means of access to markets or agencies, and it is by opening up the country by railroads and other means of cheap transit that this industry can be encouraged and developed. "Had I not been a helpless cripple," says Sir Julius Vogel, "I would have preached the doctrine of railways from one end of the Island to the other." But railways, politics, and theories are inseparable, and the stern condition against importing such subjects into this essay deters me from following the subject further. Fortunately, however, the struggle is not whether railways shall be made, but merely how they shall be made and financed. One thing seems to be certain; that fanning lives where railways or even good roads are, and that it languishes and is avoided where they are not. The proportion of farmers page 66 in New Zealand paying rent for their farms is not large; but the number who are paying rent in the shape of interest on mortgages is comparatively enormous, and the high price of money tells upon the farmer with great severity. When the New Zealand Trust and Loan Company can report that they have £1,473,376 lent on freehold land in New Zealand, and can pay a dividend of 20 per cent, per annum to their shareholders, most of whom reside outside the colony, some idea can be formed of the drain that is going on from the colony. To pay 10 per cent, for money is a life-killing tax to the farmer; for, although the nominal rate of interest may be 2 or 3 per cent, lower, charges for obtaining loans, renewals, transfers, and releases bring up the average rate to quite 10 per cent. Yet, in these days of high-class farming, it is seldom the smaller farmer can do without borrowed money; and even with its aid they can hardly cope with the large farmers, who, from the extent of their acreage, can purchase labour-saving machinery extensively. A now famous author says, "One invention after another has already given the large farmer a crushing advantage over the small farmer, and invention is still going on. And it is not merely in the making of his crops, but in their transportation and marketing, and in the purchasing of his supplies, that the large producer in agriculture gains an advantage over the small one. To talk as some do about the "bonanza" farms breaking up into small homesteads is as foolish as to talk of the great shoe factory giving way again to journeyman shoemakers with their lapstones and awls." The result of this will be seen when the struggles of the small farmer cease to be able to provide the interest on his mortgages, or his direct rents, as well as necessary sustenance. Then will the capitalist call in his mortgages, with the result of merging many small farms in one large holding; and the agriculturists will only be composed of the two classes—the capitalist farmer and the farm-labourer. On the one hand we have our statesmen striving to protect the smaller men from the maw of the land swallower; on the other, the constant cry that produce can be obtained more cheaply by concentration of small holdings into one than by allowing the small holdings to 'continue. This is the point where the interests of capital and labour diverge: when capital cries out for more hands, but strives at the same time to reduce the rate of pay, and looks page 67 only to the percentage obtainable from capital invested, where it denies to labour any profit but only actual earning. The small farmer may hope for something more than daily wage, though too often this hope is never realized. The large farmer says, "My profits shall increase year by year, though wages, or the recompense of labour, shall not increase—brains and money must triumph in the end over unskilled labour." This is the problem for which no final solution can be expected, now or at any other time. The solution lies in the education of our masses in habits of sobriety, in obtaining the political power, and in wisely wielding that power when obtained.' The struggle must ever go on—whichever side sleeps will be defeated—but the victory will fall to the bravest, most enduring, and liberal-minded. Not in strikes or violence, not in desperation or sullenness, will the working-classes "find their best weapons, but in endeavouring to understand where their best interests lie, and by electing representatives who will maintain those interests. If the desire of our rulers is to promote and secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number, every endeavour will be used to check the tendency to create but two classes—the rich and the poor. No specific can be given, but by constant vigilance and a liberal, whole-hearted policy the small farmer can be kept alive for many years.

If the system of only making roads where the present traffic will pay for them is persevered with, farming in many districts where it is at present carried on will languish and fade away. I give one instance. The Karamea Special Settlement was founded about twelve years ago by Government at a very large expense: men were landed there, supported, and encouraged for years; many of them were quite inexperienced in the work, and many left the district before very long. The residuum have profited by hard experience, and there are at present in the district a number of farmers, who, if they had any opportunity of selling their stuff, would be comparatively prosperous; yet, as a fact, they are absolutely without a road in or out of their settlement, and cannot drive a beast overland to any" market. A steamer calls at irregular periods about once a month, and that is all the communication they have with the outer world. There are many settlements in the North Island in just the same condition. Where we have railroads, open land, and page 68 easy shipping, there the small farmers will be squeezed out by the capitalist farmer; where the small farmers would not be so squeezed out, they have to contend with the absence of roads of' any reasonable kind. The small farmer is not much represented in Parliament, nor are his brains, as a rule, active enough to make sufficient stir to cause his grievance to be removed; but when he is annihilated his loss will be felt to the whole community. The establishment of a State Bank which would make prudent advances to the farmer at a low rate of interest, without heavy legal charges, would do much; but there are enormous difficulties in the way of doing this, and it is feared that at present there is not much chance of its being done. Agricultural colleges may serve to induce native-born youths to learn the business of farming; but roads and bridges are the greatest necessities in order that the waste places may be made fertile and peopled, and the race of farmers an increasing and prosperous one, for many years. But in order to provide cheap labour immigration is another necessity for the farming industry. The native-born are not averse to shepherding, shearing, and stock-riding; but they have too much faith in themselves to become agricultural labourers. The lot of an agricultural labourer is superior in the colony to what it is at Home; but the sons of the colonial labourer strive to take a still more onward step and rise superior to their parents' position. Whether immigration on a wholesale scale is a good thing for the colony is a many-sided question. For my own part I would prefer that the population of New Zealand should be produced by itself, with such a leaven as unassisted immigration will give; and the wholesale importation of the inferior portion of the population of all countries will not tend to raise us to a high standard as a people. The class of immigrants required for our agricultural interests is the small capitalist farmer, or rather the practical farmer having a moderate amount of capital at command. These are at present being attracted to Manitoba and elsewhere, and very few are coming to New Zealand. These are the men who will invigorate our farming interests both by example and by infusing well employed capital into the colony. The introduction of particular clans to settle in one locality is not successful or desirable, for they remain too long as strangers to the rest of the population, and intensify their prejudices and predilections.

page 69

Table of Wheat, Oats, and Barley, raised in each Provincial District for the Year 1884-85.

—	Wheat.		Oats.		Barley.
	Acres.	Bushels.	Acres.	Bushels.	Acres.	Bushels.
Auckland	6,204	157,745	5,271	159,093	473	15,198
Taranaki	1,735	43,967	2,570	100,950	135	4,388
Hawke's Bay	1,021	26,210	3,446	82.585	683	30,199
Wellington	9,612	184,687	12,609	300,887	847	2,050
Nelson	2,339	53,436	3,025	08,976	3,607	105,955
Marlborough	2,441	61,747	2,620	108,930	4,193	141,655
Canterbury	182,560	4,459,677	129,133	157,766	19,450	557,443
Westland
Otago	64,071	1,879,308	196,120	7,369,263	10,315	331,018