A STRANGE RUMOR.

Evening Star, Issue 4202, 15 August 1876, Page 3

A STRANGE RUMOR.

To the Editor.

Sir, —A report is going round that there is a general movement in Otago, which, though it may appear to some as a cloud no larger than a man's hand, may to others appear ominous of a woe that may, ere long, overspread our horizon. The poet says : Woe to that land, to hastening; ills a prey, When wealth accumulates and men decay. The report I refer to is that a very general movement of the working class, with their families, is contemplated to California and Australasia ; and in Dunedin they are said to be on the wing for moving away en masse. This may be only one part of wider movements of depopulation of the country districts which threatens to leave rural New Zealand a waste, and to reduce urban New Zealand to depend for needed supplies of immigrants on vagrant Chinese. A possibility of euch a movement may well awaken serious thought in the minds of such as love this land. The cottages and gardens that were erected and laid out only a year or so ago are now empty. I passed hy hiß garden nnd saw the wild briar, The thorn and the thistle grow broader and higher. Be Watts's remarks do not apply to New Zealand, where every man can have his cottage and garden, but'that alone will not support a family. If work cannot be obtained in New Zealand he must take his wife and little ones elsewhere to support them, or go and leave them.—l am, Sec, W. H. Dunedin, August 14.