NEW ZEALAND

Daily Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue I, 22 April 1843, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND

Compared with the other Australian colo nies as a field for Emigration, and th investment of English capital. ln drawing a comparison between this country and the other Australian colonies it is by no means our wish or intention to raise our own superior, though it may be at the expence of the others, but to offer such remarks from our experience and observation, as may assist parties in the mother country in forming some approximation to a correct idea of the capabilities of each, and enable persons resident in this country, who have not had an opportunity of visiting the other colonies, to judge of the comparative advantages of the selection they have made. The spirit of locomation is too often the evil genius of the colonist who fancies until he has unhappily made the change that every, at all events some other colony must be better than that in which his lot is primarily cast. Expectations on leaving home are high, and the distance of the country from the native land, raises them still higher. The emigrant is disappointed, unless the new country be ever in its natural state, superior to the fine and cultivated fields which he has left behind him. The soil, the climate, he not only expects to find superior, but he is sadly disappointed if the very mountains, rocks, and rivers be not more beautiful than any thing he has been accustomed to see. Like the pictures of hope, the anticipations of the immigrant are too beautiful and bright to be realized. Every immigrant is doomed in the first instance, to be disappointed ; like the tree transplanted, he must at first pine away, and wither a little, however rich the soil, and however vigorous the after-growth may be. The immigrant in making the comparison between the land of his adoption, and the beloved country which gave him birth, forgets in his natural lingering aud love for the latter, the prime cause of separation. He never thinks that it was not because the plains of England, the vallies of Ireland, and the hills of Scotland were not as rich, as green, and as beautiful as those of the distant land that he made up his mind, it may be for ever to leave them. Few indeed, are the immigrants who have left their native land on this account. The cause of separation is in many instances, far different; necessity, and not the love of the beautiful, impels the immigrant on his reluctant pilgrimage in search of that happier home, where he fondly hopes to escape the dire effects of " fell monopoly" . But whatever the cause may be, one thing is certain : that every immigrant who is unfortunate or disappointed will, under every circumstance, blame the colony for it. While he forgets that the same system of monopoly and oppression which weighed his spirit to the earth at home, may in its own limited scale, be in existence, and in active operation in the colony, producing the same bad results as ever, he invariably traces all his misfortunes to a bad soil and climate, the poor colony suffers in character and repuation for all the settlers' mistakes or misfortunes. Corn -laws, taxes, &c, have

ruined him at home, but if he suffer here it is because the climate is too dry, or too wet. The land though rich, too heavilyr timbered, and though lightly timbered too poor. Nature is blamed for all evil in the one country, and man in the other. Some of our colonies, the North American for instance, are doubtless less desirable places than the mother country itself. It is however different with New Zealand and the Australian colonies. All or any of them is infinitely preferable to the old country in this respect. While Van Dieman's Land, both in richness of soil and temperateness of climate, far excels England. New Holland can vie with Italy itself in the purity of its atmosphere — the clearness of its skye, and the sunniness of its land. New Zealand on the other hand, claims in respect of climate and salubrity, to be ranked the Madeira, and in point of fertility, the Sicily of the southern hemisphere. Bach of our colonies has its own advantages, and no doubt its disadvantages ; "but as a whole, they afford all that may be desirable in an immigration point of view. (To be continued.)