The Waipukurau Press. Tuesday, January 2, 1906. 1905.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 3, 2 January 1906, Page 2

The Waipukurau Press. Tuesday, January 2, 1906. 1905.

—o — New Zealand has much to b e grateful for. We have not only peace, but prosperity, not only fertile soil but favourable seasons, not only abundant harvests but excellent markets. All the blessings that can be bestowed upou a nation have.been heaped upon us, and if tuere is anything wrong with us it is nobody’s fault but our own. During 1905 there has been for New Zealand neither war nor any great disaster. Nothing, perlmps, wo se than a blight, and that only a potato blight 1 There have been no sufferings excepting the inevitable sufferings that arise from t e ills to which all human lltsh is hei , and which even the must prosperous cannot escape or evaoe. Bj yonl ..our shores there have been great and little wars, stupendous battles, ferocious revolutions, disasters on a giant scale, and industrial depi e-.-sious by which millions have suffered and are suffering. But New Zealand has been like an ark amid the waters, has floated in safety and security above the tumults of the times. It may come mat in pother years we shall not escape scot free, and if that happens, we may hope to be able to lace evil fortune without overmuch fear, but at the present time we have only good fortune to think of. Everybody who is able and willing to work seems to have enough and to spare, a state of affairs that ought to be perpetual in any civilised co unry, but, unfortunately, is not so. And we have not only the certainty of good times with us, but the prospect of good times for years to come, unless we are so foolish as to drive them away.