The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1886. Libelling New Zealand.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1272, 24 June 1886, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1886. Libelling New Zealand.

Our Christchurch contemporary, the " Lyttelton Times,” in its issue of yesterday republished from the London “ Standard " of the 13th ult. a malevolent article in which this colony is most disgracefully slandered. The “Standard” bases its statements on Mr Froude’s “ Oceana," in which inter alia New Zealanders aie represented as “discussing the prospect of repudiation as calmly as farmers might last year’s weather,” On this text the “ Standard ” proceeds to descant and to characterise New Zealand as a country where “ riotous abundance ” alternates with “ misery, slavery and want,” as a land “ where want dogs the heels of a tawdry precarious splendour,” and as one of the group of Australian Colonies where “ Ministers of State and their friends travel in satin lined saloon railway carriages, where champagne is pressed upon the visitor half a dozen times a day, where alljisjluxury’and where the borrowed splendors of civilisation are looked on as evidencesJof progress.” It caps its objurations and vituperation as follows:—“A colony injthe true sense is not what we find, but a soil in the grasp of speculators—a people huddled into towns, dependent t upon ‘ public works ’ for subsistence; municipalities ‘ joyfully ’ dispensing other people’s I money, a land of Banks and Mortgage | Companies and Finance Companies; a community whose very life is jobbed away on the Stock Exchange with no more thought than if it were so much hemp. Such a country ought not to have another penny of English savings, be the consequences what they may. Better face the worst, and force the colonists to do so.” Here is a pretty sample of the harm which is wrought by such historians (save the mark) as Anthony Froude, who, paying a flying visit to a part of New Zealand, and forming their opinions without due reflection and enquiry, forthwith rush into print and commit \ themselves to statements so preposterously untrue that they would be simply ludicrous were it not for their mischievous tendency. We cannot help tracing in the expressions used a curious similarity to the utterances of one or two public men of pessimist proclivities with whom Mr Froude is known to have foregathered during his brief stay in the colony, and, who, we fancy, will now be able to see the folly, we might have written the wickedness, of so persistently fouling their own nest. Writing on this subject a Wellington contemporary remarks that “ New Zealand colonists are apparently doomed to be indebted to socalled historians. We have only just paid off our debt to the historian Rusden, and now we have to acknowledge a fresh and deep obligation to the historian Froude,” and indignantly repels the accusation of contemplated repudiation of our obligations to the English money lender, concluding with the following remarks, whid

havs our entire concurrence :—“ If Mr Froude's history is no more trust-

worthy than bis account of New Zealand we are sorry for his readers. He aaserts that the interest on our public debt is being paid out of loan, that New Zealand colonists talk of repudiation with a light heart, and discuss its

prospects as calmly as farmers talk of last year’s weather. Now we are very

reluctant to use strong or offensive

language, but to such assertions as these no mild term can consistently be

applied. They can only be adequately characterised as the grossest, most malignant of slanders. There is not

even the faintest shadow of foundation for such an infamous accusation.

Nothing can be more vilely untrue than to say that New Zealand colonists

have ever indulged in the remotest

dream of repudiation or would cm

consent to endure such a disgrace. The merest hint of repudiation would arouse , a perfect blast of execration from , one end of the colony to the other. The slightest breath of such a suggestion would be utterly fatal to the career of the most popular public man in New Zealand. Our colonists would submit to the severest hardships and deprivation rather than listen for a moment to so dishonorable a proposal. New Zealanders are not in the least degree more likely to repudiate their liabilities than are Mr Froude and the writer in the “ Standard ” to repudiate their private debts. We refuse tobclieve that Mr Froude ever heard any colonist seriously advocate or defend repudiation, and we utterly deny that it has ever been contemplated. The “ Standard’s ” article is a tissue of misstatements and misrepresentations, displaying either wildest ignorance of New Zealand affairs, or else a determination to employ every means, however indefinite, to damage the colony’s credit.