FROM THE OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF NEW ZEALAND.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 272, 15 May 1875, Page 2

FROM THE OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF NEW ZEALAND.

Let it not be thought that for all persons New Zealand is a suitable home. It is a land of plenty to the colonist who can do work such as the Colony requires, or who can employ others to do such work for him. But it is no suitable home for those who cannot work or cannot employ workers. The mere ability to read and write is >o sufficient justification for a voyage to New Zealand. Above all, let those be warned to stay away who think the Colony a sui table place to repentof evil habits. The ne’er-do-well had better continue to sponge on his relations in Great Britain, than to hope he will find sympathy for his failings and weaknesses in a land of strangers : strangers moreover, who are quite sufficiently impressed with the active and hard realities of life, and who, being the architects of their own fortunes, have no sympathy to throw away on those who are deficient in self-reliance. This warning is not altogether uncalled for. It is astonishing how many people are sent to the colonies to relievs their friends of their presence, no heed, apparently, being given to the fact that these countries are not all deficient in temptations to evil habits, and that those who are inclined to such habits had much better stay away. An instance not long since came under the writers notice. A wealthy settler received a letter from an English gentleman of whom he had not before heard. The writer explained that his acquaintance with a mutual friend induced him towrite and to introduce his son, the bearer, who was visiting New Zealand for the purpose of settling there. He was sorry to say his son had not been successful at home in anything he had tried. He had to give up the army, and was so very weak and easily persuaded, that it was hopeless to put him to anything in England. The writer would, he said, be content if the gentleman he was writing to would give his son a home and £lOO a year till he could do something better. The young gentleman who presented this letter at once intimated that a loan of £lO would be acceptable. He received it. The day was Saturday: on the Monday following, he called again for a further loan —the first £lO was gone. He was naturally denied, and the next intelligence of the young hopeful our settler received, was an order for the payment of a considerable debt. Such prodigals are not suited to the Colony. It would be better to kill the fatted calf on their account, without any intervening absence. Young women of good character, and who are not disinclined to domestic service need not hesitate to venture to New Zealand. The demand for servantsis such that employers are only too glad to obtain respectable young women, and to teach them in part their duties. That demand —for the information of the unmarried daughters of Great Britain, we may observe —is occasioned by the difficulty that exists in keeping servants for any length of time, on account of the readiness with which they are able to get married. The single young man who comes to New Zealand is not long in finding the means to comfortably furnish a house ; and, naturally, he thinks that she who shows herself well versed in discharging her domestic duties, will be able to make his home a happy one. A short courtship, a brief notice to her employer, and another home is set, up in New Zealand; another notice appears in the local papers, “Wanted, a nurse,” or housemaid, cook, or general servant, as the case may be. This is all very homely ; but the romance of the Colonies is of a very domestic nature—“ to make homes ” is another mode of expressing “to colonize.”