The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1886.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 214, 11 September 1886, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1886.

For the came that lacks assistance, For the wrong that nrcdi rcaiiUnce, For the future in the distance, And the fend that we can do.

Sir Chaiu.es G'UFFOKP at a recent meeting of the New Zealand Trust and Loan Company undertook to defend the colony against the attacks of Mr Frouile. In the course of his address he made several very good points which were the more forcible because unimpeachably true. Speaking of the area of cultivation, lie said :--

" With respect to the cultivation of N>w Zealand, hnd -Mr Fronde taken tho trouble to look into official statistics, Blue-books, and the like, ho would li*vo found that the cultivated land in A'ew Zeahmd wiis 300,000 acres more than—notone colony of Australia —but the whole of Australia put together. This would bo shown by official returns of tho acreago under cultivation. Then, too, with respect to tho yield per acre of wheat in the various colonies, showing the productive nature of New Zealand soil, .South Australia gave v return of five bushels to tho acre ; V ictoria, nine bushels; Western Australia, 15J bushels j New South Wales, 1G 13 bushels; Tasmania, lU| bushels; Queensland, 11) 1 3 bushels ; and New Zealand, 20' bushels to tho acre, and thin from Government statistic. If those who pinned their faith to Mr Froude's book would take the trouble to go into the matter he (tho chairman) thought they would receive tho statements made therein with more than doubt."

As the wool, wheat, frozen meat, and other agricultural products of the colony placed yearly in the English market might have convinced people abroad, without reference to Bluebooks, New Zealand is one of the most fertile countries in the world. It is also rich in gold, silver, coal and other minerals. Mr Fronde's glaring inaccuracies and recklessness of statement discount the value of his book very much even as random notes of travel, the only light in which we should think any sensible business man would regard it. If Mr Froudo had known more of the political life of tho colony ho would have been aware that although there is a party in New Zealand as bitterly opposed to extravagant borrowing as he can possibly be—a party which has our entire sympathy—there is no one who doubts that a very great future is in store for this country, or who believes that its national debt, which is really a consequence of the rapidity with which settlement has been pushed forward, will prove a very serious embarrassment. If the colony were so unwise as to sell its railways and deliver its main lines of traffic into the hands of monopolists, it could get rid of a greater part of its indebtedness • but already the capital invested in these railways is yielding a very fair interest after paying all the working expenses, and the time will come, when, instead of being a drag upon revenue, they might, were it desirable, be used as aids to it; The reckless ,and unwarrantable statements made^n "Oceana" have not improved Mr Froude's reputation as an observer and recorder of facts, although the book from its pleasant descriptions will no doubt be read with as much pleasure, and perhaps with more profit than one ordinarily derives from such books.

While we thus thoroughly endorse Sir Charles Clifford's condemnation of the mis-statements of Mr Fcoude, we think it rather unfortunate that he should himself have made statements and employed similes that are calculated to mislead. After stat-1 ing that " Mr Fronde landed at Auckland, and visited an island on tho coast," ho says : —" It was much the same as if Mr Froude had landed in Inverness, gone to a shooting box of one of the lairds in the North of Scotlaud, and had then written an account of the state of cultivation in England and Wales. That was exactly what Mr Froude might be said to have done with regard to New Zealand." Mr Froude, by landingat Auckland, landed in the largest city in New Zealand, a city possessing a population of 62,000 people. Moreover, besides visiting Kawau Island, Mr Froude travelled about 160 miles through the country by rail to the Hot Lakes district. It is quite true that file journey did not give him an opportunity of judging of tho settled farming districts of Auckland, but that fact is no excuse for the statements made by Sir Charles Clifford, which imply that Auckland is less progressive than oiher parts of New Zealand. The exact opposite is the truth. The oensus of 1886 has proved what has long been evident to everyone in the colony, that Auckland has made more

progress during the last thrco years than any other district of Now Zealand, and that it, lms still a much largov breadth of first-class araljle land available for future settlement.