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anothei* cas3. In the Wairarapa Yailey, forty railes from Wellington, are 

 some magnificent totara forests. There are also saw-mills which cut the 

 totara logs into boards. But the difficulty is in conveying the bulky boards 

 frova the place of production to the place of consumption, the road being a 

 mountain road over the Rimutaka ranges, 2500 feet high. The cost of con- 

 veyance is conseqiiently heavy, and while the price at the mill is under 10s. 

 per 100 feet, the i^rice in Wellington is something like 18s. per 100 feet. Now, 

 surveyors well acquainted with the country affirm that thei'e is a practical, and 

 by no means difficult line for a railway ; and should one be constructed, the 

 boards could be conveyed to the town for (let us suppose) 2s. per 100 feet. 

 Here then would be a saving in the cost of delivering the boards in Wel- 

 lington of 6s. per 100 feet, or about 33 per cent. The difference between 18s. 

 and 12s. (the real gain) would be shared between the producer and consumer 

 on the principle whicli I have already explained. In time, the consumers in 

 the town would probably secure the greater part of the saving, but the pro- 

 ducer would leap his advantage from the greatly increased demand. 



Let me now mention a case not of simple interchange (though it partly 

 bears that character) but of substantial saving, in addition to the mere saving 

 in the cost of transport. Very soosi after the opening of the line from 

 Melbourne to Sandhurst, slaughter yards were opened at the latter place for 

 the supply of Melbourne with meat. It is well known that oxen and sheep, 

 when driven to a distant market, fall off in weight and condition. They lose 

 fat, and every one knows that the loss of fat involves the loss of flavour and 

 of nutritious qualities. These disadvantages were obviated by slaughtering 

 the animals a,t Sandhurst and sending the carcases to Melbourne. There was 

 gain in many ways. Weight and quality preserved, expense of drovers got 

 rid of, carcases capable of being packed in a smaller space than live stock — 

 though live stock also was transmitted to a considerable extent. Here, as 

 elsewhere, we are inevitably approaching the boiling down phase of pastoral 

 enterprisa Along the lines of railway, the legs of the sheep, M^hich yield but 

 little tallow, but which afford the best food, will be sent to the town consumer, 

 while the tallow-yielding parts of the animal will be boiled down as near to 

 the station as possible. By the process of equalization, the result of competi- 

 tion, the consumer will get cheaper legs of mutton, while the boiler-down will 

 get a sale for what to him is the useless, or, at all events, the least useful part 

 of the animal. With the cheaper cariiage for the latter, the boiler-clown will 

 be able to offer to the squatter better prices, and even the distant consumer of 

 tallow will " share i' the gains. " Cheap carriage may not always show itself 

 in better prices, but rather in arrested decline. Though no one can possibly 

 analyse the distribution in figures, which, in the case of a single transaction 

 may be infinitesimal, that disti-ibution does most certainly adjust itself by 

 natural laws — as certainly indeed as the laws Avhich regulate rain and sun- 



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