THE "ARGUS" ON NEW ZEALAND'S FUTURE.

Grey River Argus, Issue 94, 18 August 1866, Page 3

THE "ARGUS" ON NEW ZEALAND'S FUTURE.

Will Victoria be. the foremost of Australian Colonies in the future 1 Hitherto we'have not permitted ourselves to doubt it ; but then it is only quite lately that events in New Zealand have been calling attention to the extraordinary resources and prospects of that country. Long secliided, petty, and almost ■unnoticed, the settlements in those islands have suddenly sprung into, a prominence and importance which recal the rapid progress of our own early days. Communities are quickly built up in these regions of the far. south, which were a hemisphere of mystery to the old world a few. short years ago. The turn of New Zealand is fast coming ; within four or five years she has doubied her inhabitants. Population is multiplying, not only on the auriferous hill sides and terraces of Otago and Westland, but in the province of" Auckland, furthest removed from the gold fields. Her bound •into importance has bifen so sudden that those great islands have not been even named yet. Countries large a3 England and. Scotland arc only distinguished as the North and. South Islands— the native appellations, unlike native ones in general, being in tin's instance too clumsy and long-winded for every day use ; while as for the common term New Zealand^ it cannot, of course, serve for the future, and, as inappropriate and absurd, its withdrawal was long since determined on. If their present extraordinary advance be sustained, those islands will be seen well ■on the path to that magnificent destiny which, from their geographical position and great natural opportunities, was predicted for them by- the thoughtful in 1 England long before the first of our settlements was formed on their shores. Perhaps it is in climate that New Zealand has the most striking advantage over the Australian continent. Being -very' mountainous, surrounded by the ocean, and far from any other land, there are no desert winds, and the moisture is perennial, v and at all seasons reliable. The country isSabout the size of Great Britain, but the shape being much more elongated, there are greater varieties of temperature; . for while the sugar cane, it is suspected, would grow in the- peninsula of- the extreme north, antarctic breezes give to the south the winter of Britain. As a whole, hoAvever, the climate has been compared not unjustly to that of Britain, in its vicissitudes at all seasons, and its influence on the. spiTarid the human constitution. There" is no country therefore better adapted; for the transplantation of the^ Anglo-Saxon and Celtic races/with a.sucr cessful perpetuation of the original type. It is entirely because of the difference of climate between New Zealand and the archipelagos of the Pacific that the Maoris are so much more energetic, industrious, and masculine, than their soft kinsmen of the Sandwich and Society Islands. And' the earth, like the airy' seems fashioned for the development of a great nation. Noble Harbors, indent the .coasts;*;'. great and deep riversj hundreds of yards wide, hundreds of miles long,. traverse the plains. The mountains are as.- high . as those of Switzerland, the forests as majestic as in the. tropics.; And over so _many. degrees of latitude almost alkusef id- plants, except those exclusively "of ■ the torrid zone, can find-congenial growth— all cereals, from the hardy oat and rye which need the coldj to rice arid maize which love the sun— all fruits and vegetables; arid their products, except perhaps -\vine, for. which the restlessness of the atmosphere may not be well suited— all minerals, irom gold, the most artificially valuable, to iron arid coal, the most" useful, are -found. ; Then the constant verdure affords unlimited scope for grazing, and the adjacent seas yield abundance of fish.. Just now the South Island has the largest . population because of the gold fields, but in! ntore permanent advantages the North is lastly superior. : It 'has riot its neighbor's severe winters, the mountain masses do riot engross so niuch-of. its surface, the extent of fertile land is far greater, and the navigable rivers have longer, courses.. ..TUe North Island must be the principal* ae" at of agriculture and of internal and external trade. Thetwo islands are rising into importance" so fast, and their cMef seats of population are so- verjrdistantLfrom. each other, that their formation into- two 'colonies cannot be. longer postponed, - - ■