NEW ZEALAND IN 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3180, 7 September 1881, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND IN 1881.

Under fcho above title "A.C." writing from Nelson (understood to be Mr Arthur Clayden), writes a letter in the Field, from which we make the following extracts:-— " The large number of English and Scotch settlers in New Zealand lends an additional interest to information respecting the colony. I had many proofs of this while revisiting the old home last year. Perhaps the most satisfactory to myself was the sale of nearly eight thousand copies of ' The Engla id of the Pacific ' —an embodiment of my first impression of the place. As I published in the Field while at Home one or two articles on New Zealand as an emigration field, I should be glad to give a few impressions derived from a further exploration, lam afraid my former experiences were somewhat too one- ! sided to be regarded as wholly _ satisfactory. In common with every other visitor, I was fascinated by the vast combination _of natural attractions, and my communications 'it is not all gold that glitters,' so natural beauties are not everything to the contemplating settler. Three years ago also the colony was just at the flood-tide of prosperity. The expenditure of some twenty-five millions sterling of borrowed capital had given sick, an impetus _ to trade and commerce, and had so enriched multitudes of settlers, that New Zealand really seemed not only a paradise for a toiler, bufc the very gate of a social heaven to almost everyone else. The year 1881, however, finds a sadly different state of things in existence. ... What then ? Is it true that the ' New Zealand bubble' has really ' burst,' as come of her seeming foes would suggest? Not a bit of it. Never in my opinion was the colony more thorougly sound. A ' calmer, cooler mood' has supervened, and inflation is for a time at an end. Squatterdom may possibly disappear, but it will only be to make way for a much, more satisfactory form of agriculture. There will be fewer large fortunes made, but many more well-to-do farm homesteads will be scattered over the huge areas. In lieu of occasional good times to agriculturists, springing from causes more or less accidental, prosperity will be sought in superior farming and greater enterprise in supplying the world's market. With, unparalled natural advantages, and an immense area of rich alluvial soil, New Zealand will hold her own among tho world's producers. No one who has seen the spectacle which I witnessed at Port Lyttelton a month ago can doubt this. The hundreds of thousands of sacks of wheat, second to none in quality, which were lying there for shipment to England, were an eloquent testimony to the productive power of New Zealand ; and even from this * sleepy hollow'_ _of Nelson I saw yesterday the Elecbra sailing off with nearly eight thousand sacks of barley, such as I fancy will gladden the heart of Mr Bass. The success of the refrigerator experiments on board the Orient Line steamers is also big with promise to the beef and mutton growers. On the rich grass lands of the North Island any quantity of beef can be grown; and the thirteen million of sheep already grazing over these verdure-clad hills may be multiplied indefinitely by the free use of English grasses. Vast areas, which have been carrying only one sheep to three acres, will be cultivated to keep and fatten three or four to the acre. Manufactories also will spring up, whereby thousands of artisans, weavers, &c, may come over here, and spend their industrious lives beneath these glorious, skies, instead of wasting them in the over-crowded, and smokeenveloped cities of England. This will give a home market to the producer, and re-act beneficially on all portions of the community. This time, however, is not yet. New Zealand is under a cloud. Rival politicians, like partners in a losing concern, are freely blaming one another, and a thousand panacens for the social depression are daily retailed by the somewhat perplexed Press. My own impression is that the whole outcry is largely a ' much-to-do-about-nothing ' affair. The men who are fulfilling the old conditions of success —plodding industry, strict economy, and temperance —have little to complain of. At Dunedin I found the enterprising Scotch all alive, and the late Attorney-General, the Hon. Boberfc Stout, with whom I had half an hour's chat, did not seem to know much about the ' depression.' A few ambitious speculators had come to grief ; but the Otago world rolled on tJbout as usual. Even the farmers' outcry is more an affair of carelessness an inefficiency than anything else. Two-thirds of the men know nothing about their trade . . To sum up one's impressions of New Zealand in 1881, the general outlook must be pronounced on the whole hopeful and encouraging. The check in the upward prices of real estate is favourable for investment, and I cannot help thinking that large numbers of hard-pressed English country gentlemen and young farmers with moderate capital and moderate expectations may do well here. The splendid enterprise of the shippers is I yearly bringing Australasia nearer the Mother Country. I recently came from Plymouth to Adelaide in a trifle over five weeks, and the voyage from Australia here is only an affair of five days. It was really only a prolonged sea picnic. The refrigerator ensured us beef and mutton up to the last day just as good as they were on the first, and thanks to—what would seem to be the rule in Australian voyages —the good behaviour of the sea, few of us lacked the requisite appetite to enjoy them."-