6 GENERAL REMARKS. [CHAP. I. 



oil were particularly mentioned ; but, since the 

 colony has been established, these articles have 

 scarcely furnished any exports, and they cannot be 

 expected to be sources of any considerable profit for 

 some time to come. As regards timber, it will be 

 admitted that only large and long spars, for the use 

 of the navy, will cover the expense of bringing them 

 to the water-side, and shipping them to a distance 

 of 14,000 miles. After having visited nearly all 

 the timber districts in the northern island, I became 

 convinced that such large and sound spars are 

 scarce, and that, in New Zealand, the kind of tree 

 fit for exporting never forms a continuous forest as 

 in other countries ; and as for shipping other kinds 

 of wood, this is quite out of the question, as the 

 price of sawn timber in New Zealand itself was, at 

 the time of my departure, 32*. per 100 feet ; and 

 the importation of plank from Europe has met 

 with success. It is a fact very notorious in New 

 Zealand, that the shipment of spars, from the enor- 

 mous expense of bringing them to the water-side, 

 has never been profitable to any one. There is cer- 

 tainly a large quantity of timber of all descriptions 

 in the island, which will become of the greatest 

 value in the country itself, when its resources are a 

 little more developed. Upon the labour of the 

 natives the colonist can at present depend but little ; 

 and although he will find them in other respects 

 sufficiently useful, he has to pay them at the same 

 high rate as his European workmen, without being 

 sure that they will always work at his command. 



