THE NEW YEAR.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1730, 3 January 1888, Page 2

THE NEW YEAR.

If, as one poet tells us, with the advent of Spring "the young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts oflove," so, also, with a greater universality—a universality which embraces all, whether young or old— the return of the New Year Season inspires m every heart that sentiment of hope which m the words of another bard " springs eternal m the human breast." Notwithstanding the unpleasant t/uth of the remainder of the couplet, to wit, that "man never ts but always to be blest," and notwithstanding that many of the hopes with which we have entered upon previous New Years have been doomed to disappointment, we go on hoping still, and cherish a sublime faith m the future, m the comforting belief that after the storm must come the sunshine, after the dark the dawn, and that every lane however long must needs have a turning at last. And though the "good time coming," of which we have sung and prophesied; so hopefully m the past, has' tarried long, yet it is bound to come some day, and as we stand on the threshold of the New Year it will do us no harm to believe that it will come ere the year shall close. We have had so long a spell of depression that according to the law of averages the return of prosperity cannot be far off— the tide cannot go on ebbing for ever, and the longer it has ebbed the nearer the flow must be. New Zealand, like other countries, has been passing through her share of adversity, and now that we have manfully set ourselves to the exercise of economy and prudence, and have determined for the future to endeavour to live within our means, we have a right to expect that we shall soon begin to recover our leeway, and ere long be speeding along again on the highway of progress. Indeed there are already signs that the worst of the storm is over, and there is a broadening rift m the clouds which promises an early return of -the sunshine of prosperity. Never, for years past, have ♦here been, m this district at any rate, fairer harvest prospects, and just now there is every indication of a bountiful yield ; and if only, as we think there is toom to hope may be case, the season open with a fair price for grain the present year will be a good one for farmers, and therefore a good one for the whole community. There is reason, too, to hope that the markets of America will be opened to our wool, and with this will come a better price for this another of our chief products, while the successful results of recent shipments of cheese to England also augur well for the dairying industry, destined yet to be one of the chief if not the chief industry of the colony. Then all that is wanted is combination and good business management on the part of our exporters of meat to secure for themselves the fair proceeds of that export, the lion's share of which is now absorbed by the middleman, and this done that export would speedily expand to dimensions enormously greater than it has yet assumed, the carrying capacity of out land would be vastly increased, and the rapid extension of the necessary improvements would mean a demand for labor, which would not only absorb all the surplus labor m the colony, but attract immigration of the right sort; while with a growing and thriving population the weight of our burdens would diminish, and the country once more forge ahead as it did m the prosperous times of the past. All this is, we verily believe, attainable, and with all these possibilities within our reach it will be our own fault if we do not grasp them. Lastly, Canterbury cannot fail to benefit by the expenditure of the millions of outside capital which will now be devoted to the construction of that great work, the Midland Railway, with the completion of which will come the opening up of new markets for our produce, and the cheapening of the cost of production by tha lowering of tbe cost of coal and by consequence of that of steam power. Altogether there are sound reasons for believing that the New Year is for us the harbinger of better times, and when these return, as we hopa they soon will, we shall appreciate them all the more for the taste 6( adversity whiclf has been the universal expert enqe of the jtast three or foyr ye«e,' "