The Waikato Times. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1878.

Waikato Times, Volume XII, Issue 1008, 7 December 1878, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1878.

Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religious or Bolitical. #** * ; * Here shall the Press the People's right maintain, Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain.

Tile fables iEsop wrote so manj centuries ago are ns apposite to the human nature of the present day as they were to that of his own. The world wags on and grows older, but the follies and foibles, and the virtues too we hope, of man are just as irrepressible now as fhon.-' Who dees not remember the jolly old bull-frog that, irritated by, and envious of, the bulk and importance of the ox, blew himself up and up till he burst, in his vain endeavor to assume, the same size and proportions ? The race of ambitious bullfrogs is not yet extiuet. Wo were much amused the other day, in taking up a copy of the •'Northern Advocate' —a paper published in Whangarei—to find itsleading article headed : " North Auckland v. Wai"kato. —Population of thetwo places. "—The fame of Waikato a myth." I'he heading secured, at least, one reader for the articb. The writer starts off with the assertion that "old " Rewi is only fooling," that the railway from Taranaki to Waikato will not be made for a very long time, and therefore the North will have better chance of attracting the •attention of cipitalis's. Now, this is fair enough. What would be Waikato's loss wonld be the gain of Whangarei and the North, but there is no occasion to unfairly compare the two districts with the object of furthering such advantage fo the latter. " It has been the " rule," says the ' Advocate,' " with ' Auckland people generally to '' pruise everything appertaining to " Waikato to such an extent that "strangers arriving in Auckland at •' once became impressed with the "idea that there was no other '•'district in the province worth "looking at. Much harm has "been done by this. Because the " Waikato is not what interested <: people, say it is, and persons having ■' bren induced to viiifc it, many of •' them left the province with a poor " opinion of "Waikato and a still " poorer opinion of those Auckland "natives who had sought to gull

:r TB v '. i les this, they went ■""■' away with, the impression that " there.was no otl er district in the " province : none, in fact, equal, and "certainly, not superior, to the " Waikato. This is where we obj "Cfc. " We don't wish to abuse the Wui- " kato, but we don't want it said " that the Waikato is the best " district in the province, because " that is all rot. We will take " population, for instance, as a leal. " What is the population of North "Auckland " population of Waikato, including " the counties of Wnikato, Raglan, " Waipa and Piako is only 5,7*20, or "about one-third that of North " Auckland. Wo will throw the " Mnnukiu County into Waikato, "including all the towns, such as " Otahuhu, Howick, &c, and then " the population is only 14,872, or "equal to that of North Auckland. " Surely if this Waikato is suoh a •' magnificent country as it is said to " be, it ought with its railway and " magnificent roads to have beaten " North Aucklaud in point of popula- " tion at least. But it won't do. The " truth must out. The best land in " the Proviuce is in North Auck- " land." Now, we very much wish,for the fake of the provincial di .tn'ct of Auckland, that all that oar cm temporary says were true, that the North from the Waitemata up to the North C»pe, were half as good a district, even, as the four Waikato Counties. To piove that it is not so we shall make no assertions, but shall simply quote figures, those of the census returns published lor 1878 Our contemporary's figures with regard to population are perfectly correct —if we except the popiilation of the Borough of Hamilton (some 1,200 and odd souls), which does not appear in the return of population under the head of "Counties," — but lie seems to forget altogether that while the Wdikato Counties have been settled but a dozen or so of years, during the greater portion of which time they have been subject to continually recurring native panics, the country north of Auckland has been, to go no further

back than the introduction of the 40 acre system, the outlet for settlement in the Auckland province, and for a long time the only outlet, during the past quarter of a century. It is not surprising-, therefore, that the population of the counties of Piako, Waikato. Waipa, and Raglan numbers only 5,720 souls against the 14,735 to be f.jnnd in the seven North Auckland counties —one of them, at least, colonised before even the city of Auckland itself. But it is just in proving this that the writer in the ' Northern Advocate ' has ruined his ease. He has simply prooved too much The number of the population to be found in either district is not the test, but, rather, what the .population in each district has do ie ; and if we go into tuts matter, we shall find the comparison with the four counties very unfavorable to the North. Both have a freehold estate in the hands of private owners of nearly the same —414,000 acres in the case of the North, as against 389,000 acres here. But, though we have

less than half their population, and though we have but a doz?n years of work against their mare than a quarter of a century, what is the result? That ife is which will prove which part of the country is the most suitable and the most profitable for settlement. The North has 104,407 acres of land fenced, we have 154,858 acres thus improved. Of grass land, sown after the plough, we have 82,680 acres to their 28,728 acres. Of land broken up for crop, bat not in crop, we have 12,752 acres, where they have but 3451. In the total acreage under crop, there is not so great a difference, but still a large one. We have 7,511 acres against their 4,263. If we look to the question of agricultural produce, the Waikato counties will be found far ahead—in wheat, 910 to 186 acres; in oats, 1,182 to ( Jl4 acres; in potatoes, 849 to 793 acres] in turnips and rape, 3,3G4'f0 11 acres; in forest planting, 1,110 acres to 170 acres in the North, but, it is well there should be one exception to the rule, in one specialty we yield the palm—they have two moie acres of barley than we have.

Now, if going ahead is any indication of possessing superior capabilities, and, whether in land or in men, it ia generally found to be so, there can be no doubt as to the facts of the case however loudly the ' Advocrte' may vaunt its own district or decry this. It speaks of the good land about Whangarei, and challenges Waikato to produce the like. There are truly a few thousand acres of good land about Maungakararuea and Kauriohore. but they would only make one, or, at most, two good Waikato estates. The truth is, there is no comparison between the two districts. The one is fit for small settlers, who will take alva.itage of a splendid climate for the production on the cultivatable lands of semi - tropical products, fruits, and ordinary crops, and whose hills of rough pasture may maintain large herds of cattle and sheep; the other is suitab'e for the extensive operations of modern husbandary on the largest scale, the improvements wrought on which, large as t ey are under the circumstances, are a mere nothing. In an account of a vi-it to the top of the Pirongia a tourist has truly said, that with a pane rama of the Waikato and Piako cous try spread out before him, tlr> psiti hes of settlement seemed but s > maty green dots upon the brown

waste stretching in the far distance. No wonder that Waikato attracts Southern capital, it is the only dis-; tricfc so far north in. this island which contains scope for Southern energy. : ' •; So much for the f Advocate ' and its attack on Waikato. Perhaps it was hardly worth whi'e to have put. so large a wheel in motion to cr usL so small afly. AUttle paragraph that we might have extracted from the same issue iu which the article appears, and in the next column to it, would have answered all our purpose, as showing what even the best district in the North is doing. It is headed "Row we apples swim/' and ia as follows :—" Not many " weeks ago some sti angers visited " Whangarei, Before arrival, one bet " a bottle of ch-ampugno that not half "a dozen men would be seen working "on farms. He won too. All the " visitors saw in a ride round the " district was one mail repairing a " fence, and in another place two ,f men looking 1 at a ditch, one of " whom told 'tother so and so had to "be done, auA 'tother retorted lie " had better do it himself. Tt is " needless to add that the visitors " were thoroughly convinced that " this was a laud of milk and honey, " since, nobody need work." Taken in conjunction with the high falutiu article in the next column the above paragraph is certainly amusing.