✨ Provincial Council Address
190
value of one of the staple productions of the country. Yet it is impossible, amidst all this,
not to recognise that the foundations of a prosperous future are being more firmly laid,
and that under the influence of a temporary paralysis of commerce, men have been led to
turn their heavily taxed energies to new industries and new and cheaper methods of
production, which must ultimately swell the value of our exports.
While the pastoral interests have suffered agriculture has spread, and is likely to
largely increase in importance, as cultivation can be more cheaply effected with improved
machinery.
The falling off in the land sales is not altogether a matter of regret, when we consider
that the lands in more prosperous times were being purchased in many cases to remain
comparatively unproductive.
Should the present prices of wool continue it is not difficult to foresee that the arrival
of the time will be accelerated when the large tracts of Crown lands, which have become
freehold property, and are lying almost idle, will be cultivated on a large scale or distributed
among a growing population to promote the wealth of the country.
Among other fields for the employment of labour and capital, the cultivation and
manufacture of the native flax of the country, is a subject for no small congratulation.
The establishment of a manufactory for preserving meat at a time when an almost
unlimited demand has arisen for this article of consumption in the old country, and the
boiling down establishments, and the manufactories dependent on these are preparing the
way for a steady and lucrative export.
In the meantime a brighter future seems to be dawning on the colony from the opening out of the Goldfields in the North Island. We cannot but look with sanguine expectation to these for a market for our produce, for a reduction of our taxation; and should they spread, as there is good reason to believe they will, for a solution of the native difficulty.
I am not without hopes that, in this Province, gold may yet be discovered in paying quantities.
Adverting to political changes during the last four years, perhaps the most important change in this Province has been in the separation of the County of Westland. Though, for various reasons, it may be questionable how far the separation has proved an advantage to Westland, it must, I think, be admitted that Canterbury has no cause to regret the severance.
Since I last met you the award of the umpire in the arbitration for the division of the debt between Canterbury and Westland has been published, and a copy will be laid upon the table. The result is briefly that the debt contracted by Canterbury prior to the separation, amounting on the whole to £672,867, is divided between Canterbury and Westland in the ratio of 9 to 4, giving the following share of the debt to each—
To Canterbury ... £465,881
And to Westland ... 207,036
———————
£672,867
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Canterbury Provincial Gazette 1869, No 45
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Superintendent's Address to Provincial Council
(continued from previous page)
🏛️ Governance & Central Administration9 October 1869
Provincial Council, Canterbury, Financial Depression, Goldfields, Native War