THE GOVERNOR'S IMPRESSIONS OF OTAGO.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 801, 13 April 1871, Page 3

THE GOVERNOR'S IMPRESSIONS OF OTAGO.

In his address to the Mayor and inhabitants of Oamaru, the Governor, Sir George Bowen, said : " The official tours of a colonial Governor enable him to report in an authoritative form to the Imperial Government the resources and progress of the country over which he presides, and thus to draw attention at home to the capabilities of the several districts, and to the field which they afford for emigration and for the investment of capital. On the 23rd of this month, I addressed the Secretary of State (the Earl of Kimberley) in a public despatch, stating that that day was the 23rd anniversary of the foundation of Otago : for it was on the 23rd of March, 1848, that the little band of Scotch emigrants first landed, and pitched their tents on the site of the now flourishing city of Dunedin, then wholly uninhabited, and covered with a dense forest. I added that the official statistics show that now, in 1871, the population of this Province approaches nearly to 70,000 ; that the annual public revenue ordinary and territorial, actually raised therein from all sources exceeds £520,000 ; that the trade, including exports and imports, is more than three millions sterling in value ; that the number of acres already fenced in is above one million ; that the number of horses exceeds 23,000 —of horned cattle, 110,000 —and of sheep four millions. I further pointed out that the progress achieved in the other elements of material prosperity is equally remarkable, while the Provincial Council has made noble provision for hospitals and benevolent asylums, as also for primary, secondary, and industrial schools, and for the new University, which is to be opened at Dunedin in next June. "I wish to draw general attention to these facts and figures, for their significance appears to be overlooked in many quarters. They prove that the single Province of Otago, after an existence of only twenty-three years, already far exceeds in revenue, in trade and im- , portance generally, the entire colonies ! of Tasmania, of Jamaica, and other ' West Indian Islands, of Guinea, Nova i Scotia, New Brunswick, and a large ► majority of the other dependencies of the British Crown."