Anthony Trollope on New Zealand.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 156, 5 November 1872, Page 7

Anthony Trollope on New Zealand.

Before Mr Anthony Trollope took his departure from the Colony, it will be remembered, lie was entertained at a dinner by the members of the Northern Club in Auckland. The dinner was strictly private, and reporters were not admitted. However, the Southern Cross furnishes what is alleged to be a report of Mr Trollope's speech on the occasion ; but in several r.ewpapers we have seen hints that this report is by no means an actual representation of what he said. The Thames Advertiser devotes an article to a criticism of this report, from which we take the following extracts, regretting that we have not room for the whole :

" It is difficult to imagine that the author of such works as those which bear Mr Trollope's name—which keenly analayse the most complex motives, and catch and fix the most evanescent hues of human, sentiment and passion—could descend to commonplace talk, or that he should lose the clear and graceful style which seems to con.e natural to him in his books, and adopt the jargon of a hackneyed penny-a-liner The report of lir Trollope's speech furnished by the Cross looks as if it vas made up of the somewhat muddled recollections of one of the diners passed througi the mind of a reporter. In the name of Mr Trollope's writings, and of his recorded utterances in other colonies, we protest against this being taken as representijg him. . . . Mr Trollope is made to saj :—' All through the wide extent of Australia, and in jvery house in NewZealand he hail been in, he not only found some of his own works but many of the works of Thackeray, Dieiens, and other authors of eminence in all the walks of literature.' We can make all allowance for Mr Trollope wishing to be complimentary, but we can hardly think he aieans us to believe that in every house he Las been in in Australia and New Zealand, he has found libraries so extensive as .ie speaks of. The truth is, and Mr Trollope knows it rpiite well, that the houses inwhicl. will be found the works he speaks of, arc the exceptions. The report asserts, that Vlr Trollope said he had found it so ' on a personal examination,' but we do not believe Mr Trollope would exhibit himself in the Paul Pry attitude of taking an inventory of the bookUn every house he entered. We say nothifc of the fact that Mr Trollope exalts himsel above Dickens and Thackeray, and seems til think that it is more extraordinary tfcat the olonists of New Zealand should have their vorks than his, while he must be conscious tltt they were both a head and shoulder abovehim."

After further the report, and exposing its many absurdities, the Advertiser thus concludes :—" No dubt Mr Trollope did speak on all these matn-s, and of course was as complimentary as trith would allow, but we do not think he fduld descend to nonsense and an utterly commonplace style of expression. But at tie conclusion we have a passage which we bdieve Mr Trollope uttered, because it is what rouhl strike every ol)servant man coming to few Zealand and wltat the Gross would not lave printed unless he said it. Here it is :— ; Hc spoke of the comparative influence whia agriculture and gold mining industry had ipon New Zealand society, and attributed theteipid progress in material prosperity in this olony more to the influence of her goldfields ban her agricultural resources so far as the? were at present developed.' The prosperas towns of the West (Joast, and the wealtk.f Auckland, are almost entirely dependant won the industry of gold mining; agriculture las hardly begun' in Mew Zealand. And yetthe colonists°d? \ not recognise the fact. *Tfe production of j

the gold miner is subject to a heavy special tax in order the other classes may go free ; the agriculturists have succeeded in taxing the bread of the gold miner, in order that they may be ' protected,' and the sum allotted for expenditure on the gokUields out of the great loan is a comparative trine. The goldfields are despised and elbowed aside on every adjustment. One great reason for this is the unfortunate position of the goldfields, which seems to make it impossible for them to obtain honest representatives. Our own member has voted steadily for that Government which came in on the ' protection' ticket, while the Brogden-Harrison affair could only have occurred with a goldtields member. They are aiways for saie. When Auckland men again contemn the goldfields, we shall be glad to have the conviction of Mr Trollope to throw in their faces. His statement is no more than the truth, which any man coming into New Zealand could see in a few days, but which many prominent colonists are altogether blind to, to their own and the colony's loss and damage."