MR. TROLLOPE ON COLONIAL TOPICS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1315, 16 October 1872, Page 4

MR. TROLLOPE ON COLONIAL TOPICS.

Mr Anthony Trollope, in replying to the toast to his health drunk at the banquet given to him at the Northern Club, remarked upon the universal kindness shown to him while in the colonies.; When leaving England ho expected to find the men in the colonies absorbed in an earnest endeavor to carve homes out of the forest, and with little time -and 1 Icsb inclination to pursue the graces and enjoyments of literature. To his great surprise he found the contrary to be the case. In almost' every house he entered he found some of his own books, and generally the works of the leading writers of England. In fact he believed that the colonists are far more warm patrons of literature, in proportion to population, than the people of Great Britain. He referred to the public debt of New. Zealand in flattering .terms to the wisdom and energy of the settlers. He remarked that if New Zealanders. knew how-to borrow he had seen enough to show him that they alsp knew how tfr spend. His own observations regarding the roads made throughout the country, and the railways projected, convinced him of this. 1 He believed that if the scheme of public works should be carried out as satisfactorily and as faithfully as had hitherto been done, it would repay the debt twofold. He believed that when the real facts of the inducements held out by the Colony were better known in England, the Colony would not suffer by it. He hoped that the two Islands > would not separate, but remain united. He spok^ in commendatory terms of the fair dealing shown by the colonists to the natives. He also believed that New Zealand owed more to the gold fields than to agriculture. . '