COLONIAL PROSPERITY.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2183, 23 February 1881, Page 3

COLONIAL PROSPERITY.

Sib, —Permit me a abort apace to announce the following obituary—“ Died in tbia year of grace, the prosperity of Canterbury, at Christchurch, of pulmonary affection of the (cash) chest. The deceased caught a chill from over and dishonest trading by unprincipled practitioners, and though many advisers were called in, and Bank pills administered in abundance, the patient gradually grew worse. The late plentiful harvest appeared to resuscitate the patient until it was discovered that the latent germs of the disease bad so thoroughly undermined the constitution that the bounteous harvest could not overcame the visitation of so long standing, and had practically no effect but to give the patient a little ease and comfort, with but little prospect of ultimate recovery for some time to come. This overtrading, &e.— “ This vaulting ambition “ Which o’crleaps itself, and falls on t’other side

Let us spend a few moments in reviewing the last twelve months, in this our own little Pcdlington, for the great world has been moving onwards in spite of ns. We are comparatively, both in worldly interests, wealth, progress, and intellectuality, as a mosquito would be amongst a herd of elephants, and yet we have some very puffy and self-im-portant members of the human family amongst ns, a little mixed, ’tis true. My friend Hardhorn says they are very much mixed. What I want to discover is the remedy that will resuscitate this dying millionaire, Canterbury, It is all very well for Professor Ayers to say that his Kamptulieon Restorative will, if applied often enough, make a curly poll grow out of the top of a wooden post, but it appears to me that if we harvested crops once a month, and had a ready market in every part of the world, and Lyttelton Harbor crowded to suffocation with ships to convey it thence, such a blessing as that would not clear our liabilities for at least five yeai-s and 221 days, and then the borrowing, the promises to pay, the bills at one, two, and three months, the liens, the mortgages, the securities, bonds, agreements, deeds, and all the other paraphernalia that lawyers feed on would be again repeated. My friend Mr Mioawber gives the most pithy, forcible, and true advice, whether referring to individuals or country, but most wonderfully applicable to this country at the present moment. That if a man has one pound a-week, and lives upon nineteen shillings and elevenpence halfpenny, he is a free and independent man, and can put the balance in the bank, say I ; and eventually he will become a wealthy, honored, and prosperous citizen. But—and here comes the question—it he squanders his substanoa on riotous living, and exceeds his income, until the expenditure reaches the enormous sum of twenty shillings and three halfpence, then, nothing but ruin must follow, and his innocent wife and thirteen unprotected saplings suffer in consequence of the rashness of a misguided father, who probably knows as much of financial management as a gorilla does of astronomy. At the present moment everybody seems to bo in somebody’s or everybody’s hands. These parasitical liens and obligations hang round an individual like the fungi from the roof of an old wine vault—they are an excrescent growth that is killing the tree of success and prosperity, and the sooner they are lopped off the batter. I do not mean repudiated —not quite that; we have too many repudiators in our midst—but that each man in the country should gird up hi# loins, make hi# determina-

tion to be honest, energetic, truthful, and practical in all his affairs of life, and I will guarantee that neither difficulty nor despair will over be able to enter there. The country is old enough to have established itself ; it has established its credit, and its indebtedness, that makes the nationalities of the whole world wonder, and as a funded debt is the concrete of safety and security, New Zealand may be said to be muchly safe and secure, and consequently there cannot bo any fear for the future. The only error or leaven is a co-mingling of dishonesty, bordering the outer edge of fraud, and wo know well that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. There is too much falsehood and too little manliness ; too much pretension and far too much fraud, lying and slandering. Men are not what they seem. They fear to faoe the difficulty boldly and with truth as their shield, hence the ready adoption of prevarication and falsehood. These are plain, unvarnished facts, and the nearer and bolder we approach these facts, and set aside pretension and false dealings, the sooner we shall reap the benefit and higher we shall stand, for I am sadly afraid that the character of this country in many transactions is rather unclean. We must call a spade a spade, and not an instrument for disturbing the eoil, that we may sow to enable us to gather the fruits thereof, &o. Let truth and honesty be sown broadcast, and but a short time will be required to weed out the pretenders and frauds that have been fattening in our midst, who have not bestowed a particle of good or usefulness, but have been grinding and gathering and garnering away the products of others’ labors for their own selfish benefit and ends. Depend upon it, there is yet a bright future in front, and the present depression will prove a useful and salutary lesson, and the watchword forward should bo “ Beware.” Yours, &e., Thalma. Christchurch, February 19th.