THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE. OF THE COLONY.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 297, 9 October 1873, Page 6

THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE. OF THE COLONY.

(FromtU " Auckland HercM" ) In considering the present position and future prospects of a country it is, not sufficient to ascertain its monetary condition only; itideed, except iri tbe case, of New Zealand, which presents a spectacle ~ never before seen of a young community burying! itself beneath a mountain of debt, the question of material wealth would be of secondary importance. A -nation, like a man, may be the possessor of vast , wealth, and yet a wrepk ; or it may be j poor and clothed in homespun, but the owner of immortal greatness. To the historic mind, Rome in her days of luxury beneath the C»sars, and Rome when Fabius and Marcellfls. fought for her very life with Hannibal, will at once suggest themselves. Nor will Sparta and' Switzerland, cortrasted with Persia and Hindqstari, fail to reveal this truth. , Biif the present policy of this country is such a glaring exception to the ordinary, rules, of national progress and political economy that we may well be pardoned for persistency in regarding the State of' our public purse and responsibility. To propose a remedy the whole evil must be fully known. The surgeon's knife is useless if it cut not to the root of the cancer. In dealing with .political troubles as with all.elsei "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." It ! i8 but treachery to say peace, peace, ! when there is no peace. And even were the case of New Zealand more desperate than it is, and her sources of recuperation less numerous, it would be unwise as well as wrong to bide the truth from the eye's of the .people. Nor let it bethought that we despair noi* even fear for the future of t ' bur country. We need not' at' this, stage enter upon the topic { of the resources of this colony, but 'when the time arrives, that question will also be canvassed. We have incidentally alluded to and quoted from Mr. Anthony Trollope's " Australia and New Zealand," and while doing so it should not be forgotten that the opinion of an intelligent man who has travelled to these distant lands for the sole purpose of gathering together all the information, he could- possibly obtain and then giving, it out again in a pleasant readable way to the great British public,ißs hot to be treated 1 lightly. We know that it is th : e fashion, for third' rate, critics to sneer at Mr. Trollope'a work and say, '* Oh ! Trollope is mistaken here, and he has been misled there, and he is altogether superficial, and bis picture of New Zealand is not true." To all such small pretentious cavilling, we answer that Anthony Trollope's criticism is just, temperate and true. As for his mistakes, no colonial politician that we know of makes fewer mistakes than he. Anthony Trollope will never be a great man. As a novelist he will never rank with Scott, .Bulwer, Dickens, Thackeray, ' or Kingsley. As a philosophic thinker he has not a spark of originality, nor even a pretence to profound thought. , But as a com-mon-sense observer of theworld around and.themen.and women in itintheif ordinary everyday life, we doubt if he has bis superior this day in the Em,i •pire. . And it is because of .his very common sen.se, we were almost saying this ordinary way of regarding things, that ihe people of Great Britain will value bis book and take it as a guide. We make no apology for quoting the very last sentences of his worfc They show" the man himself, they show his estimation of, these colonies,, and his thoughts of their future : "Butformen who can and work with their hands, for women who can cookand be generally use : ful about a household,' for girls whoare ready to learn to cook and to be'generally useful, these colonies ajre a Paradise: They \WII find the whole, cpndition of, life for them. • The slight estimation in which labor is held here will be changed for a general respect. Tbe humbleness, tbe hattouching, tbe servility which ig J stiT incidental to such work as theirs jn this old country, arid : which is hardJy compatible .with exalted -manhood, has found no footing there. I regard such" manhood among the ■ masses of the people as the highest sign of prosperity which a country can give." We do not hesitate to say that Mr. Trollope's work will do more good to these colonies, and' especially to 2Xew Zealand, than any action of pur rulers and politicians during the last five years. His opinion is over and over again expressed andimplied that New Zealand, under, the .guardian care of Mr. Yogel, was. borrowing a great deal too quickly and a great -deal too niu6h. And besides the mere evil [of* borrowing money, there arises another in our case, and that ib, that under our cir-' cumstances the manner iri which it is spent is a positive injury. We do not allude to the- prices paid for corrupt votes; we do not hint at the offices created for hungry dependents or dangerous foes j we do not mean the melting of our thousands in a sentimeitfal but cowardly flour-and-sugar

native policy. We mean that' the sudden diversion of a large portion of the industrial labor of the community into new and unproductive channels — channels, too, which are but temporary, and from whence this labor must intimately flow back into its old courses — is a cause for serious consideration. It is not unreasonable to suppose that one-tenth of the available labor of New Zealand is now drawn off from the old occupation^ of the people to these new works. What will happen when these thousands return to their old callings? Will it not tend to lower the rates of wages — and just as the extraordinary and fictitious trade caused 1 by the great circulation j of borrowed money, leave disaster behind it when the source of the tern- , porary prosperity i& dried up, — so the sudden cessation of Government works will damage the, labor market. The result will surely be the loss by us of thousands of valuable wealth-producing colonists who will be off to lands where no evanescent and false prosperity has left in its place a true and real depression. Then, the revenue will decrease, and the spirit of the people, buoyed up so long with the promises of national wealth, will sink in proportion to the height to which they have been raised. We can well remember the time when for three successive years the potato crop failed in Ireland, and when to aid starvation came the plague. , Through all the south and west the ravages o£ death were literally awful. Families were known to live for weeks on seaweed, and on a yellow weed picked in the fields. The houses of the relieving officers were beseiged by Crowds more clamorous if not more fierce than the troops who stormed Badajoz — the Unions were crowded to the doors — and we remember only too well, when roaming the country Bide in the Uuion of SkibeYeen the thrill of horror which shivered through our heart when, going into a wayside hut, we found the only occupant to be a blackened corpse. To these sufferings the Parliament of Great Britain, responded. Ten millions, if we mistake not, were voted in aid of suffering Ireland, and a board of work was constituted to give work and pay to the peasantry of the southwest. Huge depots of all useful and useless tools were formed. Engineers went abroad laying out expensive roads to nowhere. As a matter of course, a great deal of the money stuck to the fingers it had to pass through. How very sticky men's fingers become under such circumstances. Still a large amount fpundits Vay to the working people. The results were twofold. The first result was that all other occupations , were disregarded. The second that, the labouring classes had more money than they had ever received before, and, as a consequence, r all the trades, including those of the smuggler and the illicit distiller, throve and prospered. The people, as a rule, saved, .absolutely nothing; for a rainy day. When lo ! all at once the money w;as gone— the chest was empty. The men were discharged, the tools were returned into the depot, the people returned to their homes to starve. They had put in. no potatoes and no corn. The farmer could not bid against the public works for labor, and so they had gone themselves to work beside their men, and the night of trouble was rendered darker as the shadows settle down more thickly upon the lost travelled, when some flash, of lightning, ha^ revealed for an ihstani; the world around- him. So bare indeed, .were the granaries of the country that the Grovecfament imported almost innumerable of maize or Indian corn from the United States to preserve life itself in the sorrowing people 1 . • It js' not to be feared, nor indeed is it possible, that any such condition can, without some .special sjferpkf)- bf the hand of Clod, occur to $few .Zealand. Indeed, the worst that .can happen to her is that she and her . children will, in the future, have to fight a hard battle. Of the result of that battle, we have no doubt. There 'is' more strong, young, lusty life within the Britain of the South than could be .crushei by a score of conflicts far ,'mqre, terrible. We are mistaken upless,there be a spirit, especially in Now Zealand, which will hail such a strife with joy. ■ ,Then: are men among us, clear of eye ; steady of hand,' and bold of heart, who will rally to the call of duty.- And When our present leader, terrified, like the German in the story by the creature made by himself, shall counsel repudiation, or seek safety for himself in fight; then New Zealand, like a young athletd eager for -the contest, shall rise equal to the occasion.^ >fsharp, perhaps, may be the remedies to. be applied. The halls of legislation must be swept clear of those who would turn them into a den of thieves,', The parasites who cluster around , and worship the dispenser of ministerial mercies must be cut off and cast away. The vampires who suck the life-blood of the land while they soothe it to' sleep by the fanning of their' wings jnust be destroyed, and then* New r Zealand and her sons, in Whose veins, flows/the blood which has conquered every foe in every clime tfnd every age, will meet the difficulty and surmount it. But she will not, we may T be sure, train for that struggle under the care of Julius Yogel.

The colonies of Great Britain are remarkable not only for their number and their wealth, but also for the wonderity].; manner in which they, have adapted themselves .to every climate

and every possible ' state of circumstances. OaUwfn non mimwm mutant, gui trans mare currunt. ' When the Pilgrim Fathers landed upon Plymouth Eock, they did not mourn yainly over the memories of pleasant homes, nor aver present troubles. They raised a song of praise to the God who had guided them safely over the fierce waves of the Atlantic, and commenced to carve out in the wilderness a home. They wasted .not their time, but proceeded at once to lay the, foundations of what wiU shortly be the most powerful nation upon earth. The:flrat colo-, nists of Tasmania and- New South Wales, the outcasts of their own dear country, have left to their children.aheritage second to none on the wide earth. So great indeed is the genius of the British race that the sons and grandsons of the confused, crowds who in early days, peopled these colonies, can hold their own in every way against the scions of the 'bluest blood of Britain. We do not scruple to assert this fact, — in oratory, in a^h,letics, in science, in courage, in enterprise, . ; In arms, in arts, in song, we hold that 1 the youth of Australasia will bear comparison with 'the youth' of Britain. And" 1 perhaps the most remarkable trial of these varied qualities, which indeed all go to' make up the ideal of a man and a citizen, is the. use by these different communities of so-called " Constitutional Government." It was surely a great experiment in the manufacture of nations when a few thousands of colonists, scattered over a wild country, without the traditions, without the habits, without the customs of a settled people, were suddeuly called upon to exercise the self-rule which their fathers had only gained by the sufferings, conflicts, and experience of a thousand years. - But the experiment has answered generally with more success than could have been anticipated. As Minerva sprang at her birth fully- armed from the head of Jove, so these southern colonies sprang almost at their creation fully equipped from the side of Britain. Nor can the land of our fathers grumble at fche success of the trial. Not only are these new countries able to manage their own affairs, but they are able to afford assistance even to England in the. management of hers. We form" a market for her products, — a safety-valve through which the pressure of population may escapo,' and Australians and New Zealanders- are found in the ranks of that Ministry which for years has governed the empire " on which the sun never sets." They are to be met in England in the selectest' circles of art and literature. Tn the public schools, in "the Universities, and in Parliament, at the bar, in the pulpit, in the hospital, aud in every branch of trade and commerce, the sons of colonists and colonists themselves take no mean position. It is, however, unfortunate for us tbat we are compelled to acknowledge that perhaps the least successful of the Australasian colonies in the faculty of self-government is New Zealand. No other colony was ushered into existence under auspices so fair. In the gifts of nature, climate, soil, accessibility, and means of intercommunication ; mineral and metallic riches, and commercial position, she is, if not unrivalled, certainly unexcelled. No co^ny that was ever founded could claim precedence; and pex'haps only one equality in the moral standing of her real founders. ; The great Puritan Fathers founded the mighty American- nation; and in New Zealand we have seen, the National Church founding Canterbury, the Presbyterians Otago, while Nph-con-formists have not been- slow to enter here upon the settlement of a new land. ; And yet it is undeniably reserved to New Zealand to present to the Empire of which she forms a part; the spectacle of a Parliament so "rorrupt that it is rapidly becoming a bye-word and a reproach. The present session is fast drawing to "a close. The" only object: for which, as it seems, the' Assembly was called togefher, namely, to vote the salaries of Ministers, their toadies and their! dependents, having been fully answered, and power given to Mr: Yogel to borrow ■ a frefsh sum of nearly .three millions, it is now time that members shpuld return home to . Chew the ,cud of sweet and bitter fancy. What Act for the public good, has been passed? What thought- for the public weal has been expressed ? While the welfare of the people loudly demand? a consolidation of our laws ; while the almost innumerable defects in the Statute-book of N,ew Zealand require the application of prompt and efficient remedies ; while the administration of justice, the adjustment of taxation, the settlement' of the provincial question, the state of the public finance and public lauds, and a pcore of other existing evils cry aloud to our legislators for adjustment, we behold the session begun, and well-nigh closed, without one of the many momentous questions which most now agitate the. public mind being even so much as mentioned. Atid we would a§k What has been tbe legislation of the past five years ? It is a vast crude mass of lawmaking and law-adapting, bul}, in the main it has been but a cumbering of the Statute-book with a number; of Acts in themselves comparatively useless. Even in the cases of measures containing measnres useful and juat, they are always copied from Acts of the Imperial or Vicjtorian Parliament. In these too our wise legislators gene*

rally manage to alter something which throws the whole machine out of working order. To an unprejudiced observer it must be ludicrous to see that three-fourths of the Acts of our Assembly are either amendments of some former Act, or amendments of amend- ' ments, or amendments of amendments of amendments of Acts. The Insolvency Acts, the G-old Mining.Companies Acts, the Native Lands Acts, the Goldfields Acts, and a host of others, are year after year brought up and amended and added to, until the mine! of the reader becomes .confused, and he) feels like a man lost in tbe maze at Hampton Court. There may be, indeed, a way out somehow, but he cannot find it. And it cannot be too widely known that in relation to tbe passing of the Acts through the New Zetland Parliament the most unmitigated misrule and venality are powerful. No matter whether a bill be righteous or unholy, whether it be to vindicate some 'lofty principle or to swindle some unsuspecting citizen out of bis property, it is often a question of logrolling rather than of justice. Day after day the papers teem with facts which show tbat the fountain of power and law is, to a groat extent, impure. And so it has come to this that the colony which once stood up like the Pharisee in the Temple and said to the poor, beggar at his side, " Stand by, for I am holier than thou," is shown at last to be but a whited sepulchre. It is distressing to any mind in which there exists any feeling of patriotism to notice the ineffectual efforts made in the Assembly to arrest the torrent of political iniquity which flows and 3urges there. All honor to the men who yet strive for their country's good. But what can be. expected of such a Parliament, and what «an be expected of a people who are so indifferent to their best interests as to permit such things to pass unpunished ? But this too will have its end. Let bu(; the national credit be touched, as soon it will be ; let taxation tread a little more heavily upon our toes : let the thoughts and good sense of the people be aroused, and we shall see and hear the thunderstorm of popular indignation burst upon the heads' of the selfish betrayers of their country, and our political atmosphere will be -cleared.