HOW WE ARE SPOKEN OF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue 33, 24 December 1880, Page 3

HOW WE ARE SPOKEN OF.

i'New Zealand Tablet.] The reputation of our colony at present appears to be anything rather than an enviable one. Everywhere we turn somebody or another seems to be giving unfnvourable accounts of our condition, and declaring all our belongings to bo not only no better than they ought to be, which after all would bo but a small matter, but not one half ho good. The other day a rev. gentleman wrote to England from under our very noses and described our state as something most deplorable, and now we find a bit of a colony, half devoured by .savages, and that has to make out a living to a great extent by rearing up birds, for feathers wherewith to adorn the trimmings and top-nots of conceited women, declaring that the only good we are in the world is to serve as a standing warning to it. Listen to what theGraaf Keinet ; Advertiser over in South Africa hns to say of us: —

'.' The New Zealand colonists have not earned with them the old-fashion-ed prudence of the countries they left. They went forth from the parental home full of the ' excelsior ' motto : they would make for themselves a new and a. better home. The consequence is, they have run into debt for « productive works,' as it is called, till the interest on the money they borrowed, say 10 per cent., is crushing them into the earth, and the expected production has not been produced. A Cape colonist who has visited them, says, they are civilised up to the eyes ;' but it is, l)e says, 'an emasculated civilisation they have produced, and now there is nothing but sheer hard work, and overwhelming taxation.' The , country should, we think, be a standing lesson to this colony." Here we are, smothered in civilisation and a caution to the barbarians. But did uo one take notice of that stray Kaffir, or plucker of os' riches, who has been among us ? It was a thousand pities to have let his uncivilised eyes leave our shores without the loan of a. pair of spectacles. He was badly in need of them.