PROGRESS OF NEW ZEALAND.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 51, 27 September 1864, Page 3

PROGRESS OF NEW ZEALAND.

(From the Melbourne Age.) New Zealand is on the eve of becoming the abode of a numerous population, and will, ere : long, occupy a first rank place in the list of England's colonial possessions. Tliere is an admirable commercial position, and an abundance of fine harbors and rivers, an illimitable extent of wellwatered, fertile soil for the plough, as well asjiplands adapted for sheep farming. The mountains are confidently believed to contain coal and iron, as well as gold ; ancl the climate is the best of any colony in the world — at least, tlie besfc suited j to the constitution of the Anglo-Saxon, as it most j closely resembles that of England, while at the i same time an improvement on it. From those extraordinary natural advantages and opportuni- j ties, New Zealand has always been regarded in '| England as tho future Britain of the South. Her career of prosjierity is now substantially commencing ; and her success and prosperity are certain to advantage us here j just as the rise and advance of Victoria furnished an impetus to Australia in general. Indeed it is not improbable tbat the progress of New Zealand may serve us in still more varied ways. Nothing can be more stupid and shortsighted — nothing more truly contemptible — that the jealousy wliich neighboring colonies often entertain of each other's up-'rise. How enlarged is the population of New South Wales and her importance in the world's eye to- ' day, in comparison with what they were fifteen years ago ; and yet the Sydney men have not yet become quite reconciled to the sudden and triumphant start accomplished by Victoria, in the benefits of which they have participated. Among ourselves, too, when the Otago Goldfields were discovered, there was not wanting croakers to assert that we were about to be cut out, to have the population of our goldfields drawn away, and the business of Melbourne transferred to other wharfs. Well, so far from those sage predictions being fulfilled, the development of Otago has proved of the most signal service to Victoria and Melbourne. A lucrative market has been opened tliere for domestic produce of this colony, and fjr the goods imported by our merchants. Business was dull and declining when the new Otago trade set it right again. Those rival gold discoveries, it is not to much to say, have operated for us as a truly fortunate event. It is only reasonable that it should be so. It is more profitable, and gives more room and chances for enterprise to be situated in the vicinity of bustling civilised communities, than with wildernesses beside us. Whatever fills up with civilised settlement the lonely islands and shores of those still remote seas, must necessarily tend to the service of Victoria, as well as every other colony already existing. Instead of being jealous of the new and remarkable progress of New Zealand, it is our direct interest to accelerate ancl contribute to it by every means in our power. Nor should the important influences whicli may arise to us from the peculiar suitability of the New Zealand climate to the British physique be wholly overlooked in these calculations. There is too much groumi for apprehending that the Briton may physically degenerate on this continent. We have a fine climate, on tlie whole, to be sure ; but we are not equally positive of its thorough adaptability to the races of Western Europe. Up to the present it has been found trying and wearing. The adoption of proper habits aud modes of life will do much to remedy the evils complained of; but still the fact is patent that the children and grand-children of settlers in the older colonies are far from being, as a rule, as vigorous and muscular men as their Europe-born progenitors. Hence the value of a country next door, where tliere is promise of the European stamina continuing from generation to generation undiminished — of a population closer than at the antipodes, to supply us in the natural intercourse of neighboring countries, with an occasional infusion of unthinncd blood and unreduced and unrelaxed bone and sinew — a population beside us from whicli to recruit the exhaustion by our hot winds ofthe original energetic tone and strain of old England. New Zealand is the compliment of these colonies, their other, and in a climate sense, certainly their better half. And the sooner the provinces of New Zealand become populous and bustling, the belter in every sense for Australians — the better for their business now, and their commerce and sustained development in the future.