SIR WILLIAM FOX ON NEW ZEALAND.

Kumara Times, Issue 2865, 8 December 1885, Page 2

SIR WILLIAM FOX ON NEW ZEALAND.

There is nothing like getting the country we live in well talked about. Sir William Fox was.interviewed by a reporter when visiting Detroit. This is a portion of what the great teetotaller said:—"New Zealand is a colony by itself. It is 1200 miles from Australia, and has now a population of nearly 600,000, and this is increasing very rapidly. When I went to those seas in 1840 the whole population of all the English possessions in that part of the world did not exceed 189,000. Now it is upwards of 3,000,000. The great growth of these regions in population began at the time of the gold fever, which began at the same time as that in California, and the South Sea Islands settled up as the western coast of America has done. The miners made good settlers. They were hardy, enterprising, and enduring. There is now little alluvial gold in. New Zealand, but there is a mountain chain fifty miles long that is rich in auriferous deposit, so that our gold will never entirely disappear. But quartz mining is more costly than any other method of gold production. While mining is still going on, the conn try has become famous for its grazing and farming lands, and has rapidly l>een peopled with permanent settlers. This is the chief value of a mining excitement—what it brings in its train."