THE FUTURE OF NEW ZEALAND.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1837, 5 January 1889, Page 3

THE FUTURE OF NEW ZEALAND.

At Dunedin the other night Sir Robert Stout said “True, our territory is small compared with' the large territory of Australia, bur neighbor; but, let us remember, it has never been territory that has made a great nation in the past. To whom can we go in history for great events and high ideals but to some of the smallest nations on the face of the world ? For some of the grandest tragedies ever written, the splendid sculpture ever carved, aip the finest literature, we must go tb Greece, a country which had not nearly the territory of Otago and Southland. Passing then to Northern Europe—-to our own home the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland —that country made its name when it bad not the population of Australia combined. It then produced great men, whose names will live as long as man exists in the world. We, perhaps, shall not have the population or the territory or the resources of the neighboring continent of Australia but it must be remembered we in New Zealand have the cold climate that will enable our people to become an energetic and enterprising race, and I specially refer to southern New Zealand. Having that advantage, if we only have energy and hope in the future and hope in ourselves there is nothing in this world we may not accomplish. As the old geographer Guyot pointed out thirty or forty wbars ago, New Zealand is the centre 'erf the water hemisphere, so that it is our destiny, not merely to distribute our own products among our own people, but to look to commerce for our life in the future; and we have need, therefore, in addition to energy, to have our people a highly trained people, because the fighting of the future is not going to be done with 1 ironclads and common weapons of destruction. Competition will always exist, and in the struggle success will come to those who have the best weapons for the warfare. These will be the fittest physical body and the highest trained mind, and also the best moral character.”