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SOUTHLAND V. THE SOLEMN WARNING.

(From the SotttiitiA>*d Times, Inov. 25.) "We. published, in our last issue, extracts from two letter.?, written by a person in tnvercargill to a friend, in Scotland, and ■which found .their way into the' 'Glasgow Mail. It would not.De necessary to point out to the inhabitants of the Colony the gross falsehoods contained in those letters; hut the case is different with people at home. Their ideas of New Zealand and colonial life generally are of the vaguest description;' and such statements as those put forward by our unscrupulous townsman, whoever he may he, are calculated to have a most damaging effect by retarding emigration. It is difficult to understand what object the man could have in sending to hia friend sentence, after sentence of the 3no;3t bare-faced lying that has ever been concocted. There is, in some minds, a natural liking , to a good hoax, and from ■ time to time the usually acute editors of home journals are so far imposed on as to give publicity to extraordinary epistles which have been .foolishly devised in a spirit of fun. These Invercarglll letters cannot be classed amongst 'such. • The hoax could in no way conduce to the merriment of any one. They are evidently the production of a splenetic and narrow-minded person, who sees only the gloomy side of the picture, and the natural bent of whose disposition is not kept in. subjection by a love of truth. Some lazy discontented mortal, "who has probably suffered in pocket ,by ' the d illness of the' times, is the author of J these calumnies, and if any one merited summary - punishment, such as " tarring and feathering," •at , the ( hands o£ his fellows, he certainly .'does. He states that ho has made " a fair trial of the

coiujPy," and ha'a come to tho conclusion ! iWiTit is a hundred times worse than ' *he one ho has left. "We will enumerate a few of the reasons he gives for his opinion, and inquire into their truth, with a view of disabusing' the minds of our friends in Scotland who may have given credit to them. "As for the " land I would nob take a gift of it, if the " conditions were that I was to farm it. "It can hardly grow anything. "Wheat " cannot be grown, at all. It has ,all to " be cut in a green state when it conies " to a certain length, and chopped up for " horse feeding." ' This is the first deliberate lie or' cluster of lies. A large portion of the land of the Middle Island is admirably adapted for agriculture, anid in the Province of Southland the great draw-back to the prosperity of the farmer has been the want of mills to grind his cereal produce. That defect will shortly be - remedied, as a company has been formed for the establishment 'of extensive grain mills, an undertaking which would scarcely have been initiated unless there were a prospect of something to turn into flour. Men in the Colony are not inferior in judgment to their compeers in Great Britain, and if it' were impossible v for corn to ripen they would have found some other method .of • investing their capital. He tells us also that fruit will not ripen, but though in a newly-settled country orchards and gardens cannot reasonably be expected to be plentiful, or brought to a very high state of perfection, still, both the land and climate of New Zealand are particularly adapted for the growth of all the ordinary sorts of fruit grown, in Europe, and in the jNTorthern. Island, some of the tropical productions thrive wonderfully. Perhaps the worst falsehood of which this man has been guilty is in stating there is no grass in the country, and further on that " within a circuit of " ten miles of Invercargill there is not as " much grass on any 1,000 acred as would "feed one cow." Coming direct from a country where stock are depastured in fields of artificial grasses, the bright green of which forms so pleasing a feature in British-rural scenery, no doubt the sombre hues' of the natural grass of ' jSFew Zealand would iiot create a very favorable'impres■sion .on the /melancholy/ writer of the •" /Warning - from GS"ew ; Zealand ;". v but he 'appears altogether to have forgotten the many thousands of ' cattle, and sheep which dot our' hills and plains?, and by their produce enable «, a .certain. / class to grow wealthy in van incredibly short space of tune;; (No iCMcmy in - tho world is better suited for depasturing stock than DSTew Zealand; especially the Middle Island ; and no part of; the Middle Island than Southland ; and as each year the number of cattle and sheep increases, so do the quality; and quantity of the grass improve. .Within the/ actual radius named by this wretched grumbler there is some of the /best feeding ground to be found in the island. We must hasten on to that part of one of the letters where he describes the ." whole town" as bankrupt, and describes the working population as in a state of starvation. ; "The Gusto-m, Blouse and JPost Office clerics mvc \in a state of destitution." Hundreds of/other, letters will. .by. this time have been despatched to friends in Great Britain, telling of the great depression at present existing in Southland from yarioiis, causes, and of the temporary eihbarrassment of the Provincial G-overh-ment, owing to . its having undertaken large railway works, but we venture to say, that not one of .them has mis-stated facts in, this' manner. The best : answer ;to the assertion that. the .woiidiig population is-.starving is that the great majority of the immigrants who;have landed within the last few months have found work at a remunerative figure./ . It must have been rather a startling piece of intelligence to our worthy Collector of Customs and to the Chief "Postmaster that' their subordinates, whose salaries haye j without' eicep - tion, been 'punctually paid, are in a -state of /destitution. /, : We haye omitted in its order to notice what is said of the passengers by a certain emigrant ship to Dunedin, the name of/ which, is not supplied. "-' Tiieve were 300 passengers, all or nearly " all of whom settled in /Dunedin, and in " twelve months after,. 100 .out of 300 '•''were in their graves." 1 * The writer 6f t^xe letter in \vhiCh the above appeared does -not certainly' state, it from his p\vn .knowledge. * He says /he was told it /by some one ; but he; supplies it ;as information to his friend. The story is altogether a fabrication. ;^b&ueh mortality, oriatiy approaching it/ by Very many degrees, ever/occurred -to -the /passengers ./ /byiariy immigrant ship ; and had such a statement been iha.de . the heaver would naturally have enquired'the name of the vessel; and have supplied it to 'his///. Moreover, such a lamentable affair /y/ould not have escaped notice in, j ournals eitb er of the Colony or of Great Britain. - !We have/ mentioned only a few of the worst of. ; these Ms^ooMitijti'lhti letter; itself furnishes „ its own refutation.:/'/ If all. these .tales are true; how:;coiues: ii> thsxt immigration v to New Zealand- hajs lasted so long? This inaii is asking too /much of his/Mend at/Komc, /when he requiv&s liiiii tb believe :itiiat ; ii]l tlie letters *'&&" ijiat is,'weSuppose, the writer/ancl his friends, receiwd irom.K"6w Zealand were') little;- else; than lies. The ordinary run .of mortals do not. ' "make- a. practice , of writing lies, least'of ; all*? w/h en : ; sup/pi yingu inf prmati on to their friends -and relatives. -Forgetting (liars have proverbially short memories) that he had previously said that the land " will hardly grow" anything," he, in his second letter, tells us that " some of the '• farmers out from ten to twenty miles " from this have grown considerable " quantities of potatoes, corn, or oaten '• hay,'' but 1 hat it cannot be brought into town on account of the bad state of tho roads. Two sentences farther on he says that he has " not heard of any farmer " who grows as much as feeds his own " family." We suppose, then, the deficiency is made .up. by pro visions drawn from town ,- but how is that accomplished seeing,, that by hi& own • showing, the ' i roads are' impassable ? Where is the ' money io corner from to pay for them if

no ' farmer grows enough for his own' subsistence ? * However much we may blame this man for having written so many gross falsehoods, the editor of the Glasgow Mail is doubly guilty in allowing such stuff to find its way into his columns without pointing out to the more ignorant and inobservant portion of his readers its untruthfulness. .No educated man could for one moment believe such a l^ort, and it is no part of the dutiea of an editor to give* publicity ' to falsehood, knowing it to be such. Let those who desire information on New Zealand take it from more reliable sources than the unacknowledged ravings of a disappointed misanthrope. There are books enough, papers enough, and trustworthy men enough, in Great Britain at the present day to supply full particulars of the state of the Colony and its capabilities as a place of settlement. They will then hear that New Zealand is not surpassed either in climate or the fruitfulness of soil by .(any other country in the world. That it is rich beyond conception in mineral treasures, and is making, under liberal institutions, rapid strides towards a high state of civilization.

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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ST18641216.2.26

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 83, 16 December 1864, Page 6 (Supplement)

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,578

SOUTHLAND V. THE SOLEMN WARNING. Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 83, 16 December 1864, Page 6 (Supplement)

SOUTHLAND V. THE SOLEMN WARNING. Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 83, 16 December 1864, Page 6 (Supplement)

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