TARANAKI.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1157, 10 March 1874, Page 2

TARANAKI.

A correspondent of the Dunediu Star writes as follows: i'aranaki is a peculiar provi ice, inhabited bya peculiar people. It contains acme 2,300,000 acres of land, and an European population of aboui 50U0 souls, having a revenue of 20s per head ppr inhahitanl. It was founded in the year I'B-M, dud seems to have made no more progress than if its first European settlers had arrived

thero twenty years later. The land obtained in the province by purchase or confiscation amounts only to 300,000 acres, the millions still belonging to -the various tribes inhabiting the province. The dwellers in Taranaki appear to bo principally tho original iin migrants and their descendants. No fresh blood has been infiltrated into the province for the last twenty years. Prom L'atea to the Waitara all the people appear to be related to each other. Most of the original suttlers camo from the counties of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall; and the province sceui3 to have been preserved as an antipodean " in-and-in" west-country breeding ground. It is a province where still life, clotted cream, wooden ploughshares, moad,

and honey abound; where tie 3of relationship do not count for nought; where Tom will recent an injury to Fanny, and Fanny will champion Tom against the charge of rusticity, condone the cut of his coat, and champion tho correctness of the antiquated opinions he has inherited from bis grandfather. The means of living are so easily obtained that men pause a day or two before they make up their minds to become employed in manual labor, even for themselves.

The climate, perhaps, may be enervating; butter sells for sixpence the pound, eggs for sixpence tho dozen and oilier comestibles at a similar rate. Four-fifths of all the old settlers being landowners, further tends to induce independence of other men's labor. You see no rags, poverty, or destitution in the province; the police havo

no vagrants to apprehend. If Provincial policemen in New Zealand anywhere have a sinecure, it is here. The people all knowing each other in this clover-nook, a stranger attracts

immediate attention. His antecedents and business are carefully inquired after ; the male population strive to ascertain what balance he has at his bankers, what lands and becvea ho possesses elsewhere; the softer sex learn whether he is married or single ; and if found to be without incumbrance consider if he may be regarded as an eligible parti. The province is called the garden of New Zealand. The name is apropos It is too fertile to Induce energy. We never expect to become millionaires, the people exclaim, but contentment is great gain. In politics, the provinco is split up into two factions—the Carrington and Atkinson parties. It is over-represented for its population in the Parliament, sending three members to the House of Eeproseutatives. The reason given for this large Parliament stall'is rather unique. It sends one member on account of its past misfortunes ; another to represent its present position ; a third, to stand sponsor for its unborn, prosperity, The province is as a parish—its politicians are as vestrymen and neither progress, wealth, nor energy will bo manifested until its members are increased, and the heart-burnings of its political cliques at an end."