“MRS BROWN ” ON NEW ZEALAND.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2176, 15 February 1881, Page 3

“MRS BROWN ” ON NEW ZEALAND.

Mr Arthur Sketohley seems to have been somewhat bilious after bis trip through New Zealand, in which “Mrs Brown” was not appreciated at what ha probably thought her value, and this is hew he relieves himself in a contribution to the “ Bombay Gazette”:—

“ Our journey through Now Zealand wag like what one may imagine that of a judge on assize. We stopped at every town, only to find one more depressing than another. Wo passed through many places which were little better than brickfields, though they boasted the possession of hotels and institutes. These last named were curious flights of fancy, merely pleasing fictions, but the hotels were stern realities. I never saw so many unhappy drunken wretches, lying like swine in and about the doors, as I did in these hotels—like swine they were only as to position, for they were incapable of jumping up, ss swine would have done, at the approach of danger. One can form a slight, though very slight, notion of the pandemonium exhibited by a goldfield in full operation by witnessing a roadside hotel in either Now Zealand or Australia, where a band of navvies or sheep shearers have arrived possessed of money, flushed with anticipation of their only notion Jof enjoyment of a holiday unlimited indulgence in drink. It is useless to dilute or moralise on a state of things which would appear to be irremediable, though the consideration of the subject should chock, one would think, the arrogant tone in which the English are wont to express contempt for savage tribes and debased aborigines, since it must be allowed that the wont feature in savage life is the conduct, in many cases to be traced solely to the black man having taken to imitate the conduct and habits of hi* civilised white brother. As we wound our weary way through New Zealand from town to town we were struck not so much by the dreary aspect of the country as by tho air of desolation of the towns. One of those we visited bad been, it

lia true, a few months previously nearly washed off the face of creation by a violent mountain torrent bursting over it. If, however, half was true of that which we hoard as to the rascality of its inhobitants, no visitation, however disastrous, short of destruction, could have been adequate to the deserts of such a nest of scoundrels, wherein, as we were told, hotels were openly dens of vice, of fraudulent bankruptcy, and every villany rampant, carried on with surprising ingenuity and audacity, and thoroughly successful through complicity of confederates, male and female, in respectable positions. One debtor, we heard, had burnt down bis house to defraud all his creditors, as well as the company in which he was heavily insured. It is true he only burnt one of his servants to death, having considerately removed his wife and family the day before the fire, which he would not have done had the woman not been his confederate, the wretched servant having been left to sleep in the house to save appearances. In many other towns in New Zealand we observed the same depressed air about the people, which mystified us till we had its existence explained to us on the ground that the inhabitants of New Zealand in general were in a state of chronic insolvency. That there were at that time numbers of prosperous men throughout the islands is a statement, no doubt, perfectly true, though such cases were exceptional, the general condition of the people being one of insolvency. The truth is, the New Zealanders are in precisely the same position as gentlemen at Home who live on kiteflying, pawning their property, or any other device by which it is possible to live for a long time on nothing a year. Reckless purchases of land, facilitated by easily obtained advances of money, have led to this evil state of things, and partially deadened the moral sense of many well meaning speculators, who have been living on for years in a fool’s paradise, as though they could go on borrowing, and a day of reckoning would never come, quite forgetting that for however long a time you may go on renewing a bill it must be met somehow at last. It is urged by some that as long as in New Zealand the land exists on which money is advanced, the lender is secured ; but it is possible to overpawn your security, however valuable; and the price of land, however good _in quality, must, when over-mortgaged, in time decline. It has been stated that every individua 1 in New Zealand, from the infant in the cradle to the oldest inhabitant, would, if the debt of the island were consolidated and distributed equally, be in debt £6O. Being no financier, I can suggest no remedy for this state of things, from which I heartily wish my fellow countrymen in New Zealand a speedv and happy deliverance; whilst I should strongly advise capitalists to think well before they make either advances or investments in a country which has evidently indulged in over-speculation, and is looking up to unpleasant results, the product of gross imprudence, if it be not stigmatised by stronger terms.”