THE SLANDERS AND MR. GRANT'S REPLY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 13 December 1880, Page 2

THE SLANDERS AND MR. GRANT'S REPLY.

TO THE EDITOR OS THE OAMAKTJ MAIL. Sir,---A considerable amount of criticism has been occasioned by the correspondence that has been going on between the southern •parts of New Zealand and the Old Country. The Rev. Mr. Foster comes to the front as the wholesale detractor of the Colony, and having been, so to speak, only a few days in this hemisphere, write with an air of authority that would be considered just a little beyond the mark even in a colonist of 20 years' standing. The Reverend divine's sole aim seems to be to paint the land that he has chosen ass his home in as hideous colors as possible, and, in his would-be philanthropic advice to those whom he left behind him, he exhibits a very strong desire to impress upon them that oup Colony's prospects are a shade dwker than even the very chambers of the grave. His letter savors somewhat of gall, and while one or two sentences bear a pretty near approximation to the truth, as to the present state of our finances, the whole epistle, from beginning to end, constitutes one huge libel the Colony. The reverend scrfta Jiag; pot even the manliness to acknowledge that he is treating only e>f sie present, being what i.'j vulgarly designated a new-churcj s and one npt at a,ll competent to wrjse 0¥- speak concerning the country, Jt may be, however, that Mr. Fqstw *( aa n§ opinion of his own on the gubject, but that he has been spotted as a fit person to occupy the i position of exponent of other people's opinions, and that, ' in bis simplicity he has merely been coaxed to fire the balls prepared by cowardly, discontented men, who never have pluck enough to publjoly express their own sentiments. If the opinions expressed in Mr. Poster's letter are really his own, we cannot but regard him as a rash writer, and a bad colonist. If, on the other hand, he has been victimised by a section of his flock, he is to be pitied; and probably the strictures passed upon him by the Press of the Colony will be a warning to him to apply hi ; s talent more in accordance with the divine oommand, "Go ye intp all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," and, without insinuating that anything is wanting in this precept, we may safely add, "leave politics alone," Looking further south, we find the Dunedin correspondent of one of the English papers writing in somewhat o£ the same strain, though much more truthfully. The Dunedin writer's remarks relative to the sluggish statQ or the grain market last season BO oaa deny, nor is there any desire to do so. By appealing to the agricultural population he may substantiate every assertion in this respect j , and, indeed, his whole letter is pervaded by truth, although, like the most learned divine, who stretches almost tQ bunting point, he treats too muoh of the present. True, as a preas correspondent, the. present position only is that with which he has properly to do,; but considering that his letter was going Home for the information of- people totally unacquainted with the Colony, the writer might have : expressed an opinion regarding t\ie future, and have given some idea of the past as compared with the present. It seems certain that the Dunedin correspondent usea the press as a means of showing his own personal dislike to the Colony, and to win hist point exposes every bad point he can think of, without even hinting at one redeeming feature. Altogether, the Dunedin letter sadly lacks the excellent gift of charity. We now eome to the elaborate effusion from Lincolnshire. Mr. Grant evidently wishes to be regarded as the best, if not the only, authority worth listening to concerning matters pastoral and agricultural on this side of the line. Taking up the cudgels in defenoe of the Colony, he can see no bad features at all. To Mr. Grant's comprehensive mind all is plain and easy. One requires only to set foot in New Zealand and the realisation of a fortune is merely a matter of a few years ; and such bitter experience as total failure is a thing quite unknown. This is just the old story, and that which many hardworking oolonists fearad would find its way to England. It is the aristocratic version, seen and read through th§ spsQtactes- 01, expensive landed proprietory, and is as far from the whole and naked trutji a$ the; denunciations of the Dunedin correspondent, and the wholesale anathemaniaranatha pronounced by him who is sioned to preach peace and goodwill among men. The gentlemen from Lincolnshire arrived, and sojourned, in the Colony during a season almost unparalleled; and they were supplied, presumably, with a fair amount of the wherewithal. On their arrival they most cordially received—something ]

the fashion of a Colonial Governor, or Indian Maharajah. No hardships awaited them. In the morning they sallied forth accompanied by lords of the soil, and attended by a retinue of servants, not, perhaps, a groat turn-out, but quite sufficient to makej travelling pleasant, and to gloss over all little inconveniences. Everything within: doors was doubtless prepared for tlio: sojourners in handsome stylo, and indeed in this respect they probably revelled ini luxuries to which they had hitherto been strangers. The petted and spoiled travellers; were taken to the fields on large estates, where their admiring eyes beheld vast tracts of golden corn ripe unto harvest. On the magnificent estate of Longbeach they were especially surprised. They had seldom if ever seen the like. The shrewd laird entertained his guests with a little of his experience, maybe in the hope of effecting a sale of his acres, and the unwary Lincolnshire gentleman accepted the story as something iike a second edition of the Gospel. Viewed in one aspect the picture is charming, but from another and better standpoint numerous flaws are discovered. The crops of the rich men did indeed look splendid, and were well calculated to deceive the very best of English farmers, inasmuch as their country being an old one, and well worked, they are utterly ignorant of the toil and' enormous expenditure entailed by the difficulties connected with bringing the grounds under cultivation in a country like New Zealand. Without making any minute enquiryas to how and when the land on the estates of" Mr. John Grigg, and Others, was prcparedi for the crops presented to the view of Mcssrsi. Grant and Foster, but presuming that oualate guests were greatly deceived, not peii'haps by untrue statements, but certainly by unwarrantable concealment of facts, wo may venture to say that it became the. duty of the great ones of the soil, on undertaking to entertain the travellers, to have impressed upon them the indisputable fact that in this, young country such magnificent crops as. they saw on virgin soil are the result of two, and sometimes three years' laborious work,, not by themselves, but by unfortunates who-, prepare the ground for them. Probablysome of these glorious crops were the second! year's product of the soil, in which caaci Laird Longbeach, and others of his kidney, would reap the benefit of money spent by croppers, many of whom find tbe firsfc crop a. failure. If these good eropa were: the second,, then the profits accruing fifom. thom would; have to be divided by thaiee„ and half of the third taken as the, average profit, bccauso the season was an. exceptional one. Of thesc\ facts surely Mr. cannot be aware, nor has he been fa,vored with the little item that a contractor residing in this district dropped L3QQQ on the estate of Longbcaoh, while j trying to knock something out of the ground. The extensive estates are the only ones menItioned by Mr. Grant and his colleague. Medium sized farms seem to have been beneath their notice during their sojourn' here. Had they been the guests of struggling cockatoos, they would have gone ; to England with a very different tale. | No man ean estimate, with any hope of' being right, what will come out of a field of corn, without going into it and making a. fair scrutiny of the crop and soil in which it, is growing—so say farmers, who should! know—and, taking into consideration the; period of Messrs. Grant and Foster's sojourn;, and the length of time spent on the estates; of the rich, it is certain that their visits tm smaller places must have been very £w. Had they consulted practical farmers concerning the capabilities of the soil, the judgment formed would have been something like correct, and the J&rmers' Delegates' mission would prod»«s good results; but, like everything o>se, men of wealth and no practical experience were chosen as their guides and teachers, hence the rubbisli contained in this notable letter from the pen. of Mr. Grant. His is more absurd and. more likely to be productive of evil than t those of the Rev. Mr. Foster and the Dun--edin correspondent. Had the delegates; taken their information from men "of experience and common sense, they would! have learnt that when an exceedingly fine; harvest is reaped in New Zealand, experience: calls loudly to the farmers to provide,, from; the fruit of that season, for one, two, or,, maybe, three very indifferent ones to follow;, one of which, if not two, on shingly soili, may prove a total failure. Not thatt ■««. ever experience what the Egyptians, felt r.t the time of Joseph's wonderful; mission, but simply that omj soil is only esufih after all, and not even the very best on the surface of the globe, although, with all its faults, it may be pronounced very gc»od. I We learn from, tbe> pen of Mr. Grant that. : last season M,e v jo&n Grigg sold an immense, quantity of oats, and that he obtained verysatisfactory prices. Very likely ; but Mr. John Grigg is not by any means a poor man—judging from his possessions—and in a bad season he can afford to stow away his grain and abide a more convenient time. Had he thrust his oats into the market at the beginning of the season, Vney would have realised the same price as oats grown by other people, name.Yy, lOd to Is per bushel, and right v; e ll he knows it, and. knew it when be informed his late gucsl,. although we near nothing of any such iiifor- , mation having been imparted to Mr. G rant—not likely. Poor farmers mwa* sdl, and not. only poor men, but those, too, wii < are comfortably situated, for, even if possessing: funds to tide over a bad tiin-i and to fortify; them against want, most of them have not; room to store their grain safely, and consigning it to the care of merchants for safe: custody is only a mild name for ruinatiom. Money they must have in most cases, anJi grain has to go to tho highest bidden;. It may give Mr. Grant a pretty fair idea of tbp fortune-realising capabilities of New Zealand, too, to mention that landied proprietors—not farmers, though th& men un/aer whoso tuition Messrs. Grant and ' Foster to a great extent placed; themselves may call themselves farmers such as Mr/ John ! Grigg,. Mr.. Studholme, and others,, seldom i consider ife worth their while to do anything at all with their land until the poorer classes , have had some trouble with it. There must be great profits from it when landfords let it for two or three years for no other rent than laying it down in English grass. Another proof that Mr. Grant is at sea may be found in the fact that enormously wealthy men, who would almost stop their carriages to pick up a pill, and who would, and frequently do, sell out a poor widow, worth a table, bedstead, and three-legged chair, because she is not able to pay a few shillings of " tack," let their broad acres for twenty-one years at 5s for the first, 103 for the second, and 15s, sometimes 20s, for the third seven., receiving an average rent of 10s, an/f at the highest Us Bd, an acre per annum for- ; the whole, term. Looking through the I medium of Mr. Grant's letter, we sea the-mQney-.g¥v\bbing landlord casting away L4\ Bs, 4d per acre per annum—very like a whale: in a teapot.

j If Mr. Grant, by his exceedingly ill-advised! ! assertions, should prove instrumental in the: advent of a crowd of men from with only a very limited supply of capital,, their last state will be infinitely worse th.mi their first, and instead of proving an advantage to the Colony they may sooner or. liiterenter the ranks of the unemployed!, audi thereby increase, our burden.. As a net profit likely to b$ realised—subject, of course, to exceptions, according to> the nature of the soil wd the abilities of the farmer—it may be the mark to say lul an acre on land, and 15s on light shingly soi ; l, and it must result from careful and not slovenly work. These figures may not be quite correct in the judgment of tho best authorities* but they may be taken as an approximate to the truth, near enough to serve as a guide. If the Lincoln folks come and settle in our midst, satisfied to obtain-, reasonable returns, they will be welcomed! by all who desire to see the Colony prosper;. bat if they emigrate in the expectation o£' realising a clear profit of L 5 an acre all: round, in fulfilment of Mr. Grant's prophecy,, their advent will create lasting dissatisfaction to all. They must not, however, blames [ the Colony for their disappointment, but; themselves for listening, through their delegates, to the uncertain sounds issuing froim the trumpets of the extensive landed proprietors, who are, and who always have: been, the bane of the. land in which we: dwell. The Linoalivshire farmers and others: will do well if they regard Mr. Grant's epistle a f&lse beacon,—l am, &c„,

Scrutineer. Timaru, 10th December, 1880.