SOUTHERN NEW ZEALAND.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 249, 20 February 1875, Page 2

SOUTHERN NEW ZEALAND.

(From the Saturday Review, November 7 ) A colony which is just now spending borrowed money on its railway at the rate of a million and a-half sterling in the year, and has run up a public debt of nearly thirteen millions, cannot fail to claim our attention. It is not here proposed to discuss the merits of this policy, but to place more clearly in view the distinctive characteristics of one main portion of New Zealand. That name may even yet, like those of other Australasian countries in the past, be deemed subject to revision. It is not long since we used to to talk of New Holland and Van Dieman’s Land. The latter now bears a worthier name; but it has been proved by Mr. Major, from early maps of the fifteenth century, that the mainland was known to the Portuguese long before it was visited by the Dutchman, Its eastern part, our New South Wales, was actually discovered by the English Captain Cook, and was soon afterwards colonised. The distant islands in the South Pacific Ocean were seen by Tasman in a cursory manner; but it is questionable whether a Spaniard had not seen them before, and it was Cook who first went round their shores. “New Zealand” is the most absurdly inappropriate name for them that could have been devised. It brings to mind the almost ludicrous contrast between those alluvial flats of the Scheldt and the bold configuration of lands formed by huge volcanic and glacial forces, and isolated by the disruption or subsidence of a vast continent, in the widest open space on the globe. To carry on the joke, when our countrymen began to deal officially with those islands, somebody had the Irish fancy to call them New Ulster, New Munster, and New Leinster. The native words, which we need not try to write, could never be pronounced or remembered ; but designations were to be contrived for the entire group, and for the several islands, two large and one small. It was attempted’ to distinguish them as the North, the Middle, and the South Island ; but this, too, has failed in practice. The most southerly isle, which is uninhabited and of insignificant size, keeps the name of Stewart, a sailor whose exploits are but too notorious: and the Middle Island has therefore been recognised as the South Island, which it substantially is. The true dualism of New Zealand, natural as well as social, is the subject of our present remarks. The striking difference, in most natural aspects, between the North Island and the Southern part of New Zealand must necessarily affect their industrial and social conditions. It will not tend to political 'separation ; but the self-sufficing-ness of New Zealand as a whole, and her independence of the Australian provinces a thousand miles away, will rather be confirmed by her development of such diverse internal resources. Some modification, indeed, is at this moment under discussion in the political relation of her N c °x^ er xr P iOviDCes - The latest project oh Mr. Vogel, a premier with a turn for audacious innovation whom his admirers regard as a colonial Bismarck or Cavour, is to merge those four provinces in that of metropolitan Wellington. This will probably be resisted by Auckland, the older and more populous former seat of General Government resenting still the loss of that profit from official expenditure which was never larger than during a Maori war. Such competition for government patronage is too apt to distract the infantile public mind of new and small communities from objects of more enduring value. It was curious in 1852 to observe how these local interests determined the views of colonists as io

the representative constitution then bestowed. Auckland was naturally afraid of being supplanted by Wellington, on account of its more central situation on Cook Strait between the two equal islands. It was therefore preferred by Auckland that the two islands should form two perfectly independent colonies. Wellington and Nelson, on the contrary —the settlements planted by Wakefield’s New Zealand Company on opposite shores of Cook Strait —asked for a central government of both islands, with municipalities at the several townships or settlements. These -were two hundred miles apart, with communications by a wretched sailingvessel or a pathless ride across mountain and forest. But each of them had the soul of a rising commonwealth. It was not municipal institutions that could satisfy the ambitious foresight of Canterbury and Otago Pilgrim Fathers. Their three or four years’ actual experience had indeed failed toprove that their wellmeaning parent Associations for realising certain principles of ecclesiastical and 1 social union could pay their way. Yet, there was no thought of abandoning those two settlements and the large investments in the purchase of territories, comprising nearly all the eastern side of the South Island. Their inhabitants of 1852, though not exceeding 4,500 in Canterbury, and 2000 in Otago, demanded provincial selfgovernment, and obtained it from the Imperial Legislature. It was displeasing, of course, both to Auckland and Wellington. The existing federal constitution allows to each of the nine Provincial Councils and Superintendents nearly as much power as is enjoyed by the State Governments of the American Union. Indeed, the New Zealand provinces have more ; for each disposes of its own waste lands for its own profit. Whatever may be the faults of this system, events have amply warranted the claims of Otago aud Canterbury, then somewhat derided, to a voice in framing the Constitution. Those provinces, created but twenty-five years ago, have far outgrown that of Auckland in every element of prosperity. The aggregate population of the South Island in March last, amounted to 186,855, of whom only some hundreds were of the Maori race. That of the North Island was 112,251, including 30,000 natives, about half of these being at least half civilised. The total European population of New Zealand has increased about tenfold in twenty years.

Scientific men have often remarked the contrasted physical features of the two large islands. Passing through Cook Strait to the north is a country of low swelling hill-ranges or tablelands, broken by isolated volcanic peaks. This land is covered with luxuriant forests, except in a central region of lakes and hot springs or geysers depositing silica and sulphur beds, like that of the Yellow, stone in North America. The climate at its north end has a languid semi-tropical warmth. To the south is a very different country. From end to end along its western side this island presents a continuous backbone of massive Alpine mountains, ranging from 11,000 ft. to 13,000 ft. in height, with.a dense forest hanging in gloom upon their seaward slopes, beneath the eternal snows. But on the other side, facing eastward, this range displays vast snow-fields and glaciers, and immense beds of loose shattered rock, with clefts and gorges of terrible depth, whence the icy rivers are poured out into the lakes of an upland plain. The lofty plateau which occupies the middle breadth of the South Island is butlressed on its eastern side by a lower parallel range of mountain s, through frequent breaks in which its rivers descend, and cross many successive terraces or steps to the eastern sea-coast. The nether terraces, from an elevation of 1,500 ft. downwards, and the strip of lowlying shore intersected by these variable rivers, compose what are called the Canterbury Plains. That province is divided from Otago, its southern neighbor, by the larger Waitaki river, flowing out of three lakes at the feet of the central mountains. In the contour of its shores this island is also very remarkable. Its south-western extremity is, by glacier action no doubt, indented with deep fords like those of Norway. The north-eastern shore in Cook Strait is wonderfully pierced and contorted, forming a maze of inlets ; but the east coast is an unbroken low beach of shingle, saving too exceptional instances. These are the two harbors of Port Lyttelton and Port Chalmers, the sea-doors respectively of Christchurch and Dunedin. They owe their existence to peninsular blocks of volcanic formation enclosing small pieces of water.

Such is the natural structure of southern New Zealand. It is evidently sj laid out that the Canterbury and Otago territories share between them most of the agricultural and pastoral opportunities, with their habitable and fertile east ward plans open to the two convenient seaports. The two northern provinces, indeed, Nelson and Marlborough, possess their own advantages. The former has thick beds of good coal, as well as some gold, copper, and iron ; the latter, in its Wairau district, has the richest soil. But for the growth of wheat, meat, and wool, upon which in the first instance the wealth of a new country mainly depends, the middle and southern parts of this island combine all favoring conditions. Their climate, less mild anil tranquil than that of sheltered is better suited than any other in world both to the cattle and to the cultivated plants of Britain, as well as to the health of our people and their children. It is like the best English clima e kept dry and ever clear of fog, with much less winter frost. Seasonable airs of wholesome cold are inhaled from the inland snowy heights, or wafted from the Antarctic icebnrgs. Only an incessant windiness is complained of, butthat serves to purify the air and to brace the nerves. Every vegetable product or domestic animal of our rearing there grows and multiplies wilh amazing quickness and equal vigor. The soil is good, though somewhat light, and responds to manure, it is said, in a manner that seems miraculous. There are no swamps and no forests in those broad plains east of the Alpine range. The farmers and the graziers of Tiinarn and Oamaru are Jhrtuna/i nimium. who would know their hap) y lot if they could, for any wages, get the labor they want, together with easier access to a market. But these are boons which the railways nnd steamships are likely soon to give them. Three million acres in the Canterbury plains are fit for the agriculturist, the sheepbreeder, or the stock-owner, besides the extensive highland and mountain runs.

Otago, including Southland, can show nearly as much open land, with a soil even better for wheat. From thirtyfive to fifty-five bushels an acre is obtained in the most southern district. The merino sheep imported from Australia grows much bigger; bis fleece here weighs, instead of two pounds and a half three and a half; the wool, though not so fine, is softer, with longer staple. New Zealand sheep-feeding obtains a greater advantage, as the coarse native grass, and the rude squatting management of vast open runs, are superceded by laying down succulent English grasses in the fenced meadows of purchased estates. The yearly produce of the colony exceeds three million bushels of wheat, and forty million pounds of wool, chiefly from the two great southern provinces. Canterbury already counts her three millions of sheep, Otago her four millions, with myriads of oxen, horses, and swine. The mineral riches, too, of this southern island are great, though surpassed by Auckland tin the north. The Otago goldfields have, indeed, since 1866 shown a decreasing yield ; but these, together with those of Hokitika or Westland, lately part of Canterbury, and with these of Nelson, Btill yield gold to the value of £1,600,000. Manufactures are promised and even commenced in the towns. With these various and copious sources of public wealth, and with rapid sales of Government lands at £1 and £2 the acre, means were early found by the enterprising Provincial Councils to begin the construction of railways. Cut boldly through the rocky mountain that guards Port Lyttelton, a tunnel has opened the sea-door to the city of Christchurch close behind. The locomotive now travels sixty miles southward over the Canterbury plains. It will in the year after next, or not much later, pass on down to Timaru, and perhaps meet the up train from Dunedin. The last-named capital has 18,000 inhabitants, while Christchurch has 10,000; but they will probably by the end of the nineteenth century be equal to the present Melbourne aud Sydney. The population of Canterbury province is 60,000, and that of Otago is 85,000. It is worth while to notice the steady and substantial progress of this southern country since the New Zealand Constitution was granted twenty-two years ago. Its founders, Scotch and English alike, failed in those days to realise their ideas of colonisation under Church patronage. But they can now see in thriving adolescence the lusty young Scotland and England which they begot in 1848 and 1850. Lord Lyttelton when he visited the antipodes must have found in the sight of Canterbury province a compensation for his past trouble in its first settlement. There is nowhere in the Queen’s dominions a community that preserves so faithfully the genuine characteristics of English middle-class society. It has no admixture either of an Irish or a German immigration, nor has it, like Otago, been invaded by the Australian diggers. To any well-bred English family of small fortune seeking a new home beyond the seas, that remotest colonial shore, if go they must, offers probably the most congenial abode.