THE MELBOURNE EXHIBITION.

Bush Advocate, Volume I, Issue 44, 16 August 1888, Page 2

THE MELBOURNE EXHIBITION.

NOTES EN ROUTE. (fbom our special commissioner.) Your final instructions to pack up and proceed to Melbourne as a special correspondent to your plucky "little sheet" came so suddenly upon me that I have scarcely as yet realised all the it omentous bearings of the trip on the future both of myself and the paper. lam writing these few lines about five in the morning at the Bluff, previous to our departure for Hobart and Melbourne. My fellow-pas-sengers are still in the arms of Morpheus, and the ohoir 1 have around me of sonorous and anything but heavenly musio makes the cabin a rather undesirable study at the present moment. There is one individual in particular close to my elbow, who snores in a vicious way I never heard before. Shall I desoribe it ? My cleverness as a vivid depicter has hardly attained a high enough pinnacle to give you a trite bird's-eye view of it. It must •be both heard and seen to be fully appro* oiated> I have run against many "snores " in my life, but not one like this ; neither has any of your supporters, Mr Editor, I will wager, except perhaps on Very rare occasions, when they have come aorosß students of hypnology with an overdose of a column or two from certain of your, conteiaporaries. I shall not, however, attempt 'fully to describe this particular snore, but this much I will say — It is not an ordinary snore, either in the bass or the treble ; nor does it run up the chromatic scale in the same style as the laughing jackass goes down it. The nearest I can compare it \o is an intermittent mud volcano in its process of subsidence. For a few minutes the slumberer breathes, calmly and peacefully like a little child,; then, all of a sudden there is a succession of fearful snorts followed with a painful gurgling and gradually subsiding sound, and ending at last in a quiet slumber for a few minutes,- when again the same programme is gone through. I have several times tried to examine the proboscis of the sleeper in question to ascertain the material from which it is manufactured ; but the said intermittent phenomenon has always been 100 much for me. It may be indiarubber, it may be some other tough elastic material. Any way, if it is not properly glued on I fully expect to find it disappear before long thoughsheer suction, in which case the fellow may be said to have breakfasted, so to speak, on his nose. '• But " — you will say — " what has all this to do with the Melbourne Exhibition. If this bo the .kind of quid pro quo you are going to give me I have been a fool' to - — " My dear sir, I am not at the Exhibition as yet, but hope to do the subject full justice, and give you and the Bush full satisfaction by and by. In the meantime a few "notes 1 ' by the way may perhaps be accepted by yourself and readers as a kind, of entree, VhexQ may \

be many of you who would think a treatise on "snores " not altogether a fitting ' introduction to the series of letters which are to follow, but then you wanted a descriptive writer, and what more can I do under the circumstances than describe my temporary surroundings. From the above your readers may imagine that I am an individual not inclined or able to generalise or discuss more serious topics. Well, they are wrong. As a rule I am rather seriously inclined, and it was really to say a few/ words about a subject very serious to New Zealand that I took up my pen to send you a few lines at this early stage. I refer here to THE PRESENT EXODUS from this colony across the water to* Tasmania and the Australian colonies. The New Zealand press has already cursorily touched on this subject, but not in the manner the growing magnitude of it should demand, and only as a surgeon who is feeling along the skin for the bullet when the probe is needed. There can not, in my opinion, be a more convincing argument as to the rottenness of the country, to the harvest of its Dead Sea fruit. I have now come face to face with this extraordinary desertion,* and made inquiries wherever we landed, as well a 8 among officers and orew. I have interviewed the most of my fellow passengers, and inquired into their motives for leaving, their past and present circumstances' and have come to the sad conclusion that the population is leaving our shoreß for good, wholesale ; and, worse luck, the emigrants belong to classes, and are of ageSi which entitle most of them to the nomenclature, " The bone and sinew of the nation." A great many of them have parted with their lares ct penates at great sacrifice, some leaving landed property behind them in the hands of acquaintances or relations to occupy rent free, or have left it to take care of itself as well as it can. Young fellows, who soon will become able-bodied men, with youth, energy, and strength to take their share of the common burden are leaving even in greater number than the experienced settler or tradesman of advanced age, who has given New Zealand a fair, patient trial. Two instances will suffice as illustrations of the many. Mr has a farm near New Plymouth? he has closed his dwelling, Bold his stock, left a few pounds with an agent to pay rates and taxes, and is on board, booked for Tasmania, bitterly regretting the years he has spent in New. Zealand. Mr is a builder, contractor, and generally practical man, who owns houses and .landed property in Hawke's Bay. After a fifteen years' trial he is now off to Australia. He leaves a family behind awaiting to join him, as soon as he has located and built a home for himself. As I said, these two cases are illustrations of a great many. How many may be understood from the following hard facts' For the last'three or four months the accommodation capacity of the steamers has been taxed to the very utmost, What I mean by utmost may be judged from the common occurrence of shakedowns on the floor, on tables, in the bathrooms, in fact on every available foot of Unoccupied space. Take for instance this present trip. On leaving Napier about fourteen steerage passengers were booked for Melbourne. Before leaving Dunedin an army of carpenters had to be engaged, and fifty more bunks were fitted up in the hold. At the present moment, on thepoint of leaving the Bluff, this extra sleeping accommodation is fully taken up, and shakedowns are improvised in the most ridiculous places. The saloon, or first-class cabin, is also full, but I must admit, that the greater part of the passengers there are pleasure seekers on a visit to the exhibition. However, the undisputable fact remains, that the exodus of bona fide, settlers is increasing instead of abating, and has now assumed s uch extraordinary dimensions that it cannot be any longer concealed from the world at large. What is the cause of this stain on our otherwise beautiful colony ? Is not the secret to be found in its per" nioious system of Government, which thd political wire-pullers will not part with to save ttie country, the taxing of the people to the very last straw on the camel's back to keep this system up, and lastly, the very poor efforts of each successive Government to open up the resources of the country, and to introduce such measures as will invite both capital and labor to our shores. Until the Government will in. troduoe and carry out a true retrenchment policy, will part with its "whiteelephants," stop land sharking, and open up the country, in a manner encouraging to settlement and local industries— until then, New Zealand will be, comparatively speaking, deserted and shunned.

In ooming down the coast I bad a quiet '• mouch round " wherever we landed, to see what was going on, and I found extreme dulness everywhere. -Dunedin is the briskest of the whole batch of them, although it is here that the greatest number of passengers have been rushing to the steamers. On jnquiry I found that most of these emigrants came from the interior of the province, and do not properly belong to the town itself. Next to Duuedin I must place Napier, giving Wellington third rank with regard to bonajide business arising from permanent resources, and wealth truly belonging to the place. I firmly believe that if the seat of Government, the House of Parliament and the shipping were taken away from Wellington, the much boasted empire city would be in even a worse state than Christchuroh, which says, a great deal, for of all the towns of any consequence the city of the Plains is the most dull and depressed. It speaks volumes then in favor of Napier, that without the above-mentioned .advantages it even now can beat the' capital of the country. ' (To be Continued.)