ATTACKS ON NEW ZEALAND.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 247, 9 December 1880, Page 4

ATTACKS ON NEW ZEALAND.

The London correspondent of ' the Auckland Herald writes : — One of the most startling indictments against New Zealand which has appeared in tho Enplish papers of late «. as published in a Lincolnshire paper Inst week. It is a letter sipnpd " John Foster, Oamaru, July 6, 1880." The writer is said, in another part of the paper, to be a Congregational Minister from. Lincolnshire, and, I presume, that "he follows the same vocation in the colony. That your readers may judge .of the im presß.onß being formed and spread by new arrivals, I give some extracts from this letter. The writer says : — " In my judgment tbat man is ncMng criminally who holds out any inducement to any other than large capitalad farmers to come to this country, .... I want to save what few shillings I can lay aside from paying the exorbitant prices of the necessaries of life to enable me to plant my feet on the old shore again as coon as possible. . . . Only two years ago the Government launched into exppnditure, counting upon £1,750,000 from the sale of land?. Judge of their chagrin when in that short time the land sales have fallen off to less than £200,000 annually. This is a fair specimen of the financ'al foresight and politioel sagacity of the rulers of New Z3aland. . . . You have also to remsmber that almost everthing that, comes into the country is suVject to a * protective' tariff of 15 per cent., and «,h<_t there are scarcely any industries here to protect. What is the use of our abundance of corn ? Labor makes *he loaf dearer then at Home. . Peaches are thrown to the pigs in the country, but if a poor fellow in town wants one, he must pay 8d per lb. , . . .A certain gentleman has been instrumental in getting up an agitation in favor of single ladies of education end culture coming here, If those young ladies started, and the vessel went to the bottom in the Bay of Biscay, it would be a greater mercy that sent them there than that which permitted them to come here .... into the same pandemonium. .... Every second tradesman in a town like this has, in some shape or other, made the acquaintance of the Bankruptcy Court of late. . . . Piled-up grain stores find no outlet for their produce, even at losing rates. . <. . Tell me tbat the present depression could not have been predicted two years since ! Any, the most ordinary, judgment on ihe spot might have told ten years ago that the reckless procedure of the Government would bring its reckoning day. And it has come 1 A woeful day it is! Government and agents alike must bave known tbat it was coming !" (Yet tbe writer has just asserted that two years ago the Government launched on an expenditure calculating upon a land revenue of £1,700,000, when it is now but £2C0,0C0). "Am I sorry I came ? No— emphatically no ! To have discovered the delusive trap into which my countrymen were being lured is -worth all the cost I have expended upon it. To have the gratitude of one score of hearts saved from breaking up home and rushing into a moral wilderness, without even the golden sand to redeem it, is reward enough for me. I tell you, my old neighbors and friends, stick to your land yet Ah. what a tale I could unfold of the evils, tbe debaucheries, the blasted lives, and the abject wretchedness of

the voyage to many. What a heavy charge I could lay against the lowtoned morality, (be slipshod religion, tbe substitution of hon.a.ish-like for the stern old honesty of the bookhotter known at Home tntm here. But I will draw the veil over what must be to me a painful knowledge down to the very grave." To much of the above I have no objection. These aro the writer's views, and he is entitled to express them. A gentleman, not a colonist, but who has been several times to New Zealand, and baa known it for twenty years, brought tbe papfcr to me saying ' the man must be a fool." I replied, "no ; he is an honest man evidently, and knows no better." I cannot, however, so easily excuse the following, psrograph from the same tffusioc. A men who brands the colony for slipshod religion Bhonld not have penned the following : — " Lincolnshire farmers, beware ! Grant ml Forster ere amon» you ; ond I know not how muctTthe hero-worship ihey endured here may have made their bass and tenor harmonise with the alto and treble of the Agent-General and his well-paid boys. Reckon with this .net before you move a peg towards a sale and a voyage. If small f«rmers here in tbe past with all the prosperity behind and round about tbem could not do, and have, by the score, not only lost their farms, but all that they have put into tbem on the deferred payment system, how are you going to do better when the grain grown is next to useless for want of a market ? when facilities for carriage are being curtailed ? when competition will become keener because of the desperation to which men are driven to undersell ? when the railway tariff ia to be increased to pay the colonial debt ? and wben you have to meet a condition of heavy taxation, frora your land down to your wife's wedding ring and your baby's rattle ?'' At the lime the above was written, Messrs Grant and Foster had neither published their report, nor uttered a public word in England on the subject of New Zealand. They are reported to be men of sound judgment and blameless integrity. What right had Mr Foster to warn tbe Lincolnshire public against their unuttered report ? Can nobody who even visits New Zealand tell (he truth except the Rev, J Foster ? It is to be hoped for hia own sake that this Lot will have saved shillings enough to get safely out of Sodom before the report of his letter reaches Oamaru, or the bankrupt shopkeepers of that town may demand an explanation. This is certainly the first time that I have seen .New Zealand callejd a " pandemonium"— a place where . all devils do congregate. I pity the Lincolnshire fathers and mothers who have children in your colony when they read this. The statement that educated young women bad better go to the bottom in tbe " Bay of Biscay ihan I go to New Zealand, 1 ' reminds me of a letter I saw in a London paper last week, to the effect that a lady who advertised for a lady help io England received in a few days 121 leUersj in reply, many of them from educated women, willing to do anything for bread, and that some of their ! appeals were desply touching. New Zealand must have changed since I knew it, if willing and capable women have' to seek in vain for employment.