AN AMERICAN ESTIMATE OF AUSTRALIA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 67, 19 March 1877, Page 4

AN AMERICAN ESTIMATE OF AUSTRALIA.

A contributor to the u Atlantic Monthly" io the 1 course of a graphic series of articles entitled *'Characieristics of the International Fair," writes of the Australian colonies as follows:— "The Australasian Continent took the lead in all that pertains to farming; tho colony was here in the grandeur of an epic. South Australia, besides very numerous samples of beautiful grain, wool, and silk, had two series of photographs well worthy of inspection. Ti\ey were not large, but very clear and distinct, aud illustrated the various processes of mining and grazing. The latter with its flocks and herds, its scenes of sheep shearing, its likenesses of Bingle lordly rams, carried one into a new phase of civilization. Iu the history of nations it is recent for an enlightened people (in the old geographical meaning of tbe term) to adopt the pastoral life, and this witb modern modifications is what the English :are doing out there. They do hot live in tents, nor wander and migrate ; but their wealth is in their deep -fleeced flocks and the cattle upon a thousand hills. The result of the experiment will be as interesting as it is important in {he developement, uot only of this mode of livelihood, but of the human creaiure itself. Those British colonists as situated in many ways as we were a century ago. Their representative men were born in England, or are but one. generation or so removed from her. Tbey hold their traditions and codes from the mother country, but from her pore creed, not her corrupt practice. They are no longer squeezed by overcrowded communities, nor stinted by inelastic, out-grown moulds. They bave a .wider verge, in which every man has room and a chance. Yet it is not mere impatience of restraint, or of the burden of superiority, social or other, which fits a man for success in these new fields. He needs energy, enterprise, and perseverance, courage, and fortitude; the intelligence to divine what new growth may be grafted on an old stock; the judgment to decide what to keep and what to caßt away; the' constant conscientious thought for a future which every day helps to fashion. Is is impossible to come into contact with their vigorous, independent, yet oot rash manhood without the reflection that of such stuff were the founders of our own country made. These have not all the difficulties with which those had to contend. It is to be hoped that they and their descendants may escape the sloughs and pitfalls through which we are floundering.