properties were to be divided into farms. The farms were to be valued, and thrown open for selection. Interest on the cost was to be paid as rent, the first payment to be made six months after the selector had taken possession.
The proposal met with very little favour, and Parliament passed over the scheme in order to give its attention to the more practical ideas of Mr. Ballance, who also introduced a Land Acquisition Bill, but had to leave office before he could pass it into law.
Sir Julius Vogel went elaborately into the proposal to lend money to farmers at low rates of interest; but he could not bring himself to ask Parliament to allow his Government to become a money-lender. At one time, he was very much inclined to see the experiment tried, but, believing that it would overthrow the colony’s credit, and fearing the bogey of interference with private business, he put the scheme on one side. Rather than risk anything by entering into business as a State money-lender, he decided to leave the scheme alone, and expressed a hope that private enterprise would give such relief to the small farmer as would render State interference unnecessary.
In spite of all the Government’s courage and industry, the colony could not shake itself free from the terrible depression. Conditions improved in some directions, and the colonists displayed more enterprise, and were not so inclined to give themselves up to despair; but the unemployed trouble had not been solved, and business was still dull.
There were many factors in deciding whether the colony should have progress or stagnation, and over most of these no Government could have any semblance of control. Fluctuations in the price of wool were one of the principal considerations. Wool and meat were the two staple articles of export then, as they are now; but the frozen meat industry had not given indications of the extraordinary strides it was prepraing to make. It had been in existence only four or five years, and the colony was sending to London about fifty million pounds of meat a year. The first shipment was sent by the New Zealand and Australian Land Company from Port Chalmers
