AN OLD COLONIST ABROAD.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2089, 2 December 1879, Page 3

AN OLD COLONIST ABROAD.

Without exception, the most important contribution to popular knowledge about Hew Zealand, came from Judge Bathgate, ot Dunedin, who on the 24th of September, was entertained at a banquet at his rfative town of Peebles, by the chief notabilities of the place. Some of your readers (says the Home correspondent of tbe Auckland “ Herald ”) will knoyr the town of Peebles, with its broad High street, and its numerous inns, one of the then famous hostelry of “ Meg Dods,” and its bonny Tweedsidc walks. Many of them may hare cast a line in the brown pools of Stobo, and gathered hazels on the leafy road ,to Galashiels. Peebles is, in a sense, the capital of Border Scotland, and as it happens, the stalwart farmers of that region are crying out about the bad times as much as in any other district. Judge Bathgate’s speech on Hew Zealand was well calculated to put some of them on the move. notwithstanding that the “ sylvan loveliness of Twcedale had by the growth of the trees, far exceeded his highest anticipations,” ho went on to contrast the attractions of his adopted country with a most skilful hand. It would, probably, indeed be very : difficult to even convey to you an impression of the effect which such utterances as Judge Bathgate’s have here in the midst of our political Wrangling about primogeniture, entail, and free trade in laud. “We have abolished,” he told his friends, “ the right of primogeniture, our system of land title is a model of simplicity in advance of what home reformers desire. A parcel of land can be transferred with the same case as a share in a'ship or a joint-stock company.” That is exactly what the advanced Liberals are calling out for as the first stop to a re-adjustment of the agricultural difficulties, due to foreign and colonial competition. But the judge told them much more. In warning the border men, of Canada which he depreciated owing to its severe winters and continious cropping, he told them of the atmosphere of Hew Zealand—that it was clear, elastic, and invigorating ; of the soil, that it was dry and fertile ; producing heavy crops of all kinds ; that stock throve remarkably, and that there were no venomous reptiles. Snakes are not common on the border, so his audience laughed. But the judge pushed on with his description, claiming for Hew Zealand the third place on the list of producing colonies — Victoria and Hew South Wales alone having exceeded it in exports. What probably suprised his hearers most was to discover that a woollen factory with luverleithcn and Hawick operatives, paid 10 per cent, on a capital of £70,000.