The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1912. THE PASSING YEAR.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 5, 31 December 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1912. THE PASSING YEAR.

To New Zealand generally, > an.l to Taranaki in particular, the year which ends to-day has proved a right good and prosperous one. Trade and commerce have been brisk, the prices of the country’s staple products have remained throughout almost uniformly high, and the man on the land has had little cause to complain. Naturally, as it will always be, changes, trials and difficulties have had to bo met and contended with, but on the whole 1912 must be considered as a year of great progress and prosperity to New Zealand, and the’outlook is a bright one for the year which will be entered upon to-morrow. The country has been spared great calamity or upheaval, though at one time the clouds on the industrial Horizon looked dark and threatening. Rut the great good sense of the people as a whole saved the situation, and a calmer feeling now prevails in labour circles. “Hard times” are not with us, and if those who direct the trend of Labour will but use moderation in their counsels, and allow industrial peace to prevail, nothing should seriously check the onward progress of the country’s growth and settlement. In other lands less favoured, events of terrible import have taken place, only the merest echoes of which reach our placidly isolated shores. War, with all its attendant horrors, has lately torn and devastated many fair provinces in the Old World, but we may be thankful that Britain has not been drawn into the conflict and that it has not been our lot to mourn the loss in battle of sons and brothers of our blood and race. Truly, New Zealanders are happy in the fact that they are an untroubled people, and for them real national regret does not exist, so far as the things that have happened in the year that is dying are concerned. They will go forward undeterred to meet the New Year with all its possibilities for good or evil, because they 7 carry no fear and no anxiety as a nation, for what may be ahead. Tomorrow we may hail young 1913 with open arms, hoping and expecting much from what he brings. Like the years that have gone before, 1913 will bring its share of pain and pleasure to each one of us: may it also bring full measure of peace and prosperity. To all our readers we again sincerely wilh that 1913 may prove A Very Happy New Year.