TROLLOPE ON DUNEDIN.

Evening Star, Issue 3223, 19 June 1873, Page 2

TROLLOPE ON DUNEDIN .

, This id what Trollope hasto say of our City: Otago is the most populous, and I believe I may add the richest, Province in New Zealand, and ’its capital, Dunedin, is the largest city. Acicording to the census of 1871, the population of the Province was 69.491, being something above a fourth of that of the whole Colony. Dunedin contains about 21,000 people. The .settlement of Dunedin was founded on March 28,1848, when a small band of Scotch emigrants, under Captain Cargill, first landed, and pitched their tents on the present site of the town. The rise both of the Province and of the town has been very quick, having been greatly accelerated by the rushes after gold made from the various Australian Colonies. It seems that from the first finding of gold in New Zealand the goldfields there have exceeded in popularity those of Australia. The higher rate of miners’ wages would seem to jus- • tify this, were it not rather the result than the cause. I found that New Zealand etill enjoyed much of the charm of novelty in reference toother, pursuits as well as that of gold. The wool-growers, grazers, agriculturists, and miners of the younger Colony were, I will not-say envied by Australians generally, but regarded as having had almost unfair advantages bestowed upon them. The climate has had much to do in producing this happy condition. It is, however, an undoubted fact that during the last ten yearn. there has been aTensiderable re-emigration from the Australian Colonies to New Zealand; Dunedin is a remarkably handsome town, and, when its age is considered, a town which may be said to be remarkable in every way. The main street has no look of newness about it. The houses are well built, and the public buildings, banks, and churches are large, commodious, and ornamental It strikes a visitor as absurd that there should

be six capitals in New Zealand, a country which, forty years ago was still cursed with cannibalism; but it strikes him as forcibly with wonder that it should so quickly have possessed itself of many of the best fruits of civilisation. His prosperity has come, I think, less from any special wisdom on the part of those who endeavored to establish New Zealand Colonies on this or another Scheme, than from the fact that in New 1 Zealand British energies have found a country excellently well adapted for . their development. In regard to Otago and Dunedin, it was the intention of the founders, or, at any rate, of those who instigated the founders, to establish an especially Presbyterian settlement. Doubtless many Scotch families did come out to it, and Scotch names are predominant. He Scotch have always been among the best—or perhaps the very best — colonisers that the world has produced. But Otago is by no means now an exclusively Presbyterian Province, nor is Dunedin Presbyterian city. In the now united Provinces of Otago and Southland the Presbyterians are less than half the population. As to _ Dunedin we have lateljr more pf its desire to have » Churph of EJngHud'hi«hop of its own than of any other propensity. Aftd ifc js going to have a bishop—l may say has got one, though when I was there the prelate had not yet arrived- -4 former bishop did indeed come out, but he was not approved of, and was returned, having , never been installed. It is marvellous to me’ that the Australian and New Zealand sees can ; find English clergymen to go out to them. The pay is small—generally not exceeding LSOO a-year. That bishops do not become bishops for money we are all prepared to admit. But the power also is very limited, the patronage almost none at all, and the snubbing to which they are subjected is excessive. It seemed to me that this latter process was exacerbated by the small remnant of baronial rank which is left to them. The Colonial bishop is still called “my lord,” and of course wears an apron—and lawn sleeves when he is in church. But there is a growing determination that the clergymen of one Church shall have no higher rank than those of. another; and that a Church of England bishop, therefore, shall have no special social position in his Colony. At present this feeling is less strong in New Zealand than in Australia, and is to a certain degree restrained by the quiet,unproclaimed action of Colonial Governors, who like these bishops, and do what in them lies to preserve the rank. But the operation of the coloaist’s mind, even when he belongs to the Church of England, works in the other direction. I shall, no doubt, be told that bishops do not undertake their duties with any view to the places that may be assigned to them in walking out of rooms—as to patronage, or even to ppwer. But we know that authority cannot be maintained without its outward anbudages, and that clerical authority has needed them quite as much as civil or military

authority. Dunedin did not like the first bishop chosen for the see, because he was supfosedto hav§ lent h|s countenance to some tigh Church ceremonials. He was, therefore,' sent back again. The salary offered is small, and as yet uncertain. No house, or “ palace,” is provided. I was told that it was considered indispensible that the new bishop should be a member of Oxford or Cambridge, a gentleman distinguished for piety and eloquence, and a man of fortune. “ Upon my word I think you are very exigeant,” I said to my informant. He answered me by assuring me that they had now got all that they asked. The Colonial sees always do find bishops. There are six at present in New Zealand—with a population about half as great of that of Manchester - -of which not more than two-fifths belong to the Church of England. The Provincial Council was not sitting, but I was shown the chamber in which it is held* ' The members sit like Siamese twins, in great arm-chairs, which are joined together, two and two, like semi-detached villas. 1 was specially struck by what I cannot but eall th* hyperexcellenoe of the room. There has been, in most of the New Zealand Provinces, a determination that the Provincial Assembly whall be a real parliament, with a Speaker and Speaker s chair, reporters’ galleries, strangers’ galleries, a bar of the house, cross benches, library, smok-ing-room, and a “Bellamy,” as the parliament refreshment-rooms are all called, in remembrance of the old days of the House of Commons at Home. The architecture, furniture, general apparel of these Houses, such of them as I saw, striick me as being almost grander than was necessary. The gentlemen as they sit are very much more comfortable than are the members in our own House at Home, and are much better lodged than are the legislators in ' the States of the American Union. The Congress of Massachusetts sits in a building which has indeed an imposing but the chamber itself inspires less awe than does that of Otago. In one respect the New Zealand legislatureskaya preferred American customs to thoi* Wtyoh tyey left at Home. They are

fo* thVteHoJffiSSoTof their legislative work. The pay of a member of the Provincial Council In Otago used to be LI a-day. It is now 19s lli<j When this information was first given to me, I own that I disbelieved my informant, attributing to him an intention to hoax a stranger. But I was assured that it is so. And it was arranged in this way. The legislature, bent on economy, reduced the salaries of various Provincial officers, and with that high-minded-ness for which all legislative chambers in free countries should be conspicuous, reduced their own allowances from 20s to 12s a-day. But, on trial, It was found that the work could not be done for the money. The Otago gentlemen who came from a distance could not exist in Dunedin on 12s a-day—which, if it be considered that a member of parliament should be paid at all, is surely very low in a country in which a journeyman carpenter gets as much. A proposition, however, to raise the sum again to 20s was lost by a small majority. The rule* of the House did not permit the same proposition to be again brought before it in the same session, and therefore in another notice the the nearest sum to it was named —and carried. The moderation of the members was in the fact that a fraction under, and not a fraction over the original stipend, was at last found to satisfy the feeling or the House. I think that in Otago a more general respect would be felt for its legislature if the gentlemen silting in it altogether repudiated the receipt of the smaller sum, perhaps LSO per annum, which is paid for their services. . , , Otago possessed no railways m 1072, but a whole system of railways was in preparation, partly as yet only on paper, and partly in the bands of working contractors. This system,

indeed, is one intended to pass through the entire Middle Island, and to be carried out in conjunction with an equally extended system in the Northern Island. _ For, where public works are concerned, millions are spoken of in New Zealand with a reckless audacity that staggers an economical Englishman. Debt does not frighten a New Zealand Chancellor of the Exchequer. Legislators in New Zealand take a pride in asserting that every New Zealander bean on his own shoulders a greater debt than do any other people in the world. Telegraphic wires run everywhere in Otago, and before long railways in the low countries will be almost as common. As it was, we determined to travel by coach into the next Province of Canterbury, fining that the boats were uncertain, and that the coach ran three times a week from Dunedin to Christchurch. The coach takes three days, travelling about sixty miles a-day, and stopping during the night. We were told that the journey was harassing and tedious, but it would not be so harassing and tedious as that wo bad already made; and then, by this route, we should see the country. _ Leaving Dunedin, wfc rote up a long wooded hill, with a view to the right over the land-locked arm of the sea down to Port Chalmers, which is the port for Dunedin. It was a most lovely drive. The scenery of the whole country round Dunedin is beautiful, and this is the most beautiful scene

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