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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIIL, Issue 270, 21 November 1878, Page 2

Dr Wallis, in a recent speech at Auckland, as reported by the Aucklaud Herald of the 9th, stated thet the people of New Zealand had now a debt of 22 millions; the debt on every person, man. woman, and child, being £70. In France the debt was £32 per head, in England £24, in Spain, £1?, in Austria £9, and in Russia only £3 or £4, while iu New Zealand it was £70 per head. It might be considered unfair to compare a new country like this with old countries, but he would take the neighboring colonies. In Queensland the debt per head was £35; in New South Wales, £20; and in Victoria, £19. In the Financial Statement our debt is set down at £20,900,000." Our population by the last census exceeds 414,000; our indebtedness is, in round numbers, £21,000,000; this, if worked out, gives a total indebtedness of £50 155., and not £70 per head. Dr Wallis should be more careful in his figures, which are calculated to mislead people, and to damage the credit of the colony.— N.Z. T,mes. Waimate, where the bush fire is narrated by our telegrams to have taken place, is about some twenty miles south of Timaru. A branch railway runs from the Waimate township to the main line. It is a town that has sprung up rapidly within the last few years, there being but a few huts there in 1870. There has been an old Maori kainga there from time immemorial Situated on level land of excellent quality, it i3 sheltered by the range which divides the plain from the Hakataramea country from the south-west wind. The chief wealth of the place has been derived hitherto from the bush, which ran some distance up the Waimate Valley, and clothed the side of the range. It is the most valuable bush in that part of the country, containing a large amount of totara, and as may be expected bas raised a very large price per acre when offered for sale. Mr Studholme's homestead was situated about three miles from the township at the foot of the road leading through a pass, which, if we remember aright, is called Hakataramea Gorge. He owns a very large acreage of first class agricultural land in the vicinity of the town. The loss stated as £40,000 which he has incurred, includes the market value of the forest that has been destroyed by the fire. The locality is famous for bush fires; and on the spurs of the main range, and of the M'Kenzie Country, when a fire takes firm hold of the birch bush with which they are clothed, tbe sides of the hill, present, after the fire has burned all that it can consume, nothing but a bleak mass of exposed rocks, and a multitude of blackened standing and prostrate trees, to tell the story of the vegatation. The recent fire it is to be feared will prove a serious check to the prosperity pf tbis ypung township ,m-New Zealar.der,