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With the lessening of the abnormal influx of foreign capital, the colony must look for a diminution in the rate of progress it has recently been accustomed to, both in respect to its ordinary and territorial revenue. In these circumstances, my "\dvisers entertain no doubt as to the course to be pursued. Expenditure must be decreased; lu..xuries must be curtailed; the public works which have been already been constructed must be made more productive. It is to industry and economy that tlle colony has to look for a development of its resources, and the maintenance of a healthy progress.9

Following through on such rhetoric, the new administration explored a number of possibilities to either curtail expenditure or increase revenue including implementing a beer tax, cuts to the civil service, property tax, additional

ad valorem

tax on imports, even income tax. They decided on two immediate actions. The railway timetable was reduced along with staff numbers and the £5 million loan that had caused Grey such difficulty in the house, was drawn down. By the winter of 1 881 , the Premier was lauding the apparent recovery, even though it was more good fortune than sound management that had eased the pressure. The government had raised additional funds selling off waste lands; business and public confidence was on the rise as good prices were being achieved in international export markets. More importantly, coal had been discovered in large deposits on the west coast of the South Island, and had excited the hope that the colony was indeed a place of vast, untapped mineral wealth. Such hope was premature. Extracting minerals from the isolated and rugged terrain of the West Coast would involve new rail services and further extensions to West Coast harbours, the cost of which was estimated around £400,000, far beyond the reach of the government.

The means to exploit such mineral wealth and expand the economic and industrial base of the colony would have to come from private enterprise. As the government faced these realities, its new style of political economy was perhaps self­ evident. With only limited means it had to explore a role as facilitator of enterprise in order to bring about economic viability. How it achieved this end is the subject of this chapter, which considers the government's encouragement of industry, its fiscal policy, and investment in public works.1O

9

NZPD,

35, (1 880), p.2.

111 Immigration could equally b e considered an inlportant Government initiative in respect of political economy however I have chosen to examine tlus separately in Chapter 8.

C O L ON L\ L I N DUSTR I E S C O i\I M I S S I O N /\ND B ONUS SC H E M E S

Government actions to encourage enterprise had been taken as early as 1 871 with the ftrst commission on local industries. Then, a joint committee on colonial industries had been charged with investigating, 'what steps, if any, should be taken to ascertain and develop the producing and manufacturing resources of the colony?'l l I t was both an information-gathering exercise and a way of examining what actions might be taken with such limited funds as were available to assist industrial development.

The committee heard evidence regarding the production o f paper, fish cunng, coal mining at the Brunner mine, converting iron-sand into steel, sericulture, trademarks, and sugar beet. The committee's minutes reveal a discussion that centred on whether or not to put in place a customs duty on a particular good, hence offer a modicum of protection to a new industry, or perhaps a bonus to assist manufacture, or to offer assisted immigration to gain the necessary workers who might commence a particular industry. 12

Sugar beet was one example of government action to assist industry. Following the committee's examination of the possibilities for refining sugar in the colony, the German Consul in Wellington was asked to contact an immigration agent in Germany who might secure 200 German migrants skilled in the production of sugar beet. Three thousand acres of land was set aside for its production, ftrst-class beetroot seed was sourced from Germany, and for four years any production would be exempt from excise duty. As an added incentive, a bonus of £2500 was offered for the production of the first 250 tons of sugar produced from sugar beet. 13

Bonus schemes had previously been in use by provincial councils and were an accepted method of enticing a local promoter to establish a new industry. In some instances the bonus method was successful in stimulating enterprise; 1 880 commission member A.J. Burns, the entrepreneur behind the Mosgiel Woollen Mills, had himself been assisted by a bonus offered by the Otago Provincial Council in 1 868 for the fIrst 5000 yards o f woollen cloth produced in the Province. Likewise, the following year, the

1 1

Report of the Joint Committee upon Colonial Industries, AJHR,

1 871 , H.7,

p.3.

12

ibid., pp.l -27.

13

Memorandum of l\ction taken

in

accordance

with

resolutions of the Joint committee on colonial

industries, AJHR, 1 872, G.16, pp. l-lO. This particular initiative would come to nothing and the colony

would never get its sugar-beet plantation, but the bonus scheme would prove more effective in stimulating

oci1er industries such as paper production and woollen mills.

POUTlCAL ECONOMY

Canterbury Provincial Council had offered a £1 000 bonus for the production of woollen cloth, sugar, beet, or preserved meat for export.

O n other occasions the scheme was clearly not so useful, nor could it guarantee commercial success. The New Zealand Titanic Steel and Iron Company optimistically expended £1 8,000 on a furnace and buildings to produce iron from iron-sand in Taranaki. Though they succeeded, the costs escalated out of control. After a fuU blast in September 1 876, the projectors managed to produce two tons of iron at a cost of £1 54 a ton. The ruling price on the English market was £6 a ton. Despite the evidence of hopefuls, all with extensive experience in the English steel industry, the experin1ent was discontinued, its projectors exhausted in both capital and spirits.

Likewise, attaining a bonus might still not protect projectors from the significant capital outlays involved in establishing new industries in sometimes-difficult conditions. The Woodhaugh mill of Edward McGlashan won the government bonus of £1 500 as the fust company to produce 50 tons of paper in the colony in 1 876. Equally eager was the Mataura Paper Mill Company o f James Walker Bain and his co-supporters. Both companies were forced to apply thousands of pounds in capital on machinery and experimental production to establish their fledgling industry. McGlashan, heavily mortgaged, sold his Woodhaugh mill to the Otago Paper Mills Company in 1 878. Bain held on at Mataura, though the company's debts escalated as additions were made to the factory. Eventually in 1 884, having expended nearly £25,000 in establishing Mataura, the mill was sold to Dunedin printing and stationery fum, Coulls, Culling and Co. The price was £5,000. Neither Bain's nor McGlashan's chief difficulty had been in their machinery or quality o f output, both were satisfactory. The projectors were unable to generate a return relative to the amount of sunk capital. New owners of the Mataura mill, the CouUs brothers, would face no such difficulty. It was easier to show a return on a £5,000 investment than it was on £25,000.14

The 1 880 commission was a more hurried affair than the 1 87 1 investigation, and the commissioners reluctantly admitted as much when they presented their final report in Parliament four months later.ls Convened in March that year, the commission's objective was to consider the state of local industries in the colony and whether existing, or new industries should be aided or promoted, and how this might be achieved. The

14 See Angus, John,

Papermaking Pioneers,

Mataura: New Zealand Paper tvfills Ltd., 1 976, pp.39-47. 15 Report of the Colonial Industries Commission, AJHR,

1 880, H.22, pp.3-4, 14.

sLx-member commission consisted of Edward Wake field, woollen entrepreneur Arthur Burns, William Murray, Theodore Tinne, papermaker James Bain, and Edward Stevens.

COmm1sioners sent out a circular to mayors, county chairmen, chambers of commerce, and agricultural and pastoral associations inviting submissions. The commission visited the main population centres in person but were unable to see the West Coast of the South Island. Most submissions came by mail and covered a range of industries as diverse as cardboard box manufacture, jewellery, woollens, sulphuric acid manufacture, cement, carriage construction, and coal.

The most common submission asked for the lifting of a particular government duty on a good used in their manufacturing process so they might make an article cheaper, or alternatively, the increasing of a duty to enable a new industry to compete with imported products. For example, William Leys of Auckland requested that a duty o f 3S percent be added to all ruled books and papers to enable the manufacture of such books in the local economy.16

B uilding was also at the forefront of submissions as both local bodies and private enterprise were anxious to have locally produced cement. Gisborne County Council sought a government grant of £7000 to assist someone in the Gisborne region to undertake the manufacture of cement, as did the Selwyn County Council in Christchurch. Greymouth County Council had reason to believe that it was worth experimenting of the manufacture of hydraulic lime and cement from Greymouth Limestone and sought assistance to do so. A Dunedin promoter, W.A. Ewing, stated that he would manufacture cement if the government gave him an order for 1 00 tons.17 Likewise, earthenware pipe manufacturers asked for between a 10 and 1 S percent duty on drain­ pipes to assist local manufacturers to compete in the market, citing a recent contract to supply the Christchurch drainage board that was lost to imported pipe.ls

Various trades, asked for consideration in the lucrative railway contracts that were at present going outside the colony. In 1 87 1 , when Vogel negotiated the contract for the development of a rail network in the colony with John Brogden and Sons in England, he had done so in his capacity as Premier, by-passing the need to gain the wider support of government. If he had asked the government to endorse this sole-supplier

16 _ibid.,

pA6.

17 ibid.,

pp.57-67.

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