The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, JANUARY 11.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 466, 11 January 1881, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, JANUARY 11.

It is a wise practice at a season such as this to take a retrospective glance at the year which lias just closed, and endeavor from surrounding circumstances to draw auguries of what may be expected in the future. Nor is it unnatural that we should, in the majority of instances, endeavor to look at the bright side of things. If we are apt as private individuals to err on the side of optimism, muuh more is it open t) journalists to fall into this erro . They are expected, to use the language of a talented member of the order, " to recal successes, keep failures in the background, and glance, hopefully at the future." And if in doing so we fall into the error of being too hopeful, it is surely a fault on the right side, film and women of all classes work all the more earnestly, wrestle with the difficulties which beset their path all the more valiantly, and perform that which their hands find to do all the more zealously, if they arc fortified in their struggles by hope of a successful issue. Without, however, laying " flattering unction to our souls," we honestly believe that the people of New Zealand ! may congratulate themselves on having , passed through a crisis of no ordinary severity, and on having emerged therefrom, scarred it may be, but not seriously injurred. To them may be applied the words of the Boarder Ministrel— " Utiwounded from the dreadful close, But breathless all, Fitz-Janies arose." The labor market is certainly in a far more healthy condition than it was twelve months ago. It is true that in many parts of the colony wages are low; but high wages are not what is required by the typical " working man." We have frequently come across a state of affairs in various parts of the colonies where wages were abnormally and artificially "high, and at the same time (and really on that very account) employment was exceptionally scarce. With all the necessaries of life in such profuse supply at such low prices as is the case in this country, the industrious man can earn enough to support himself by means of the expenditure of only v. inodonite por- '

tion of that labor of which he is capable. It is better for himself, better for his employer, and better for the community of which they both form parts, that he should obtiiin employment for the remainder of his time, even at a rate of wages loss than he would at one time have considered adequate. In short, it is far better that he should work six days a week at a rate which enables his employer to sell the product of his labor at a profit thf.n to keep up an artificial price for his work which only enables him to be employed for onethird of his time.

The harvest prospects are magnificent On every side, and from all parts of the colony, we hear of crops of every description exceptional both in quantity and quality. True, prices will no doubt rule low, but now that the trade with Europe has been fairly established, grain cannot fall below a certain minimum. With regard to Peninsula produce, no doubt, no such foreign market exists. Nevertheless its price as it stands will compare favorably with the purely agricultural products of the plains, considering the relative amount of labor expended upon each. Altogether we are satisfied that the colony is approaching far more prosperous times, and that we can in earnestness and hopefulness accord our readers the ac ustouied greeting of

A HAPPY NEW YEAR.