THE HEAD OF NEW ZEALAND CIVILISATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 179, 2 August 1887, Page 4

THE HEAD OF NEW ZEALAND CIVILISATION.

From recent Christchurch papers we cull a paragraph stating that a resident of that city has received^ a letter from

Home, which contains the information that Mr Archibald Forbes says, " that he places Christchurch at the head of New Zealand civilisation." ." We should be ' sorry to impugn the correctness of the conclusions arrived at by our observant visitor; but if his comparative estimate of the culture of our colonial cities be approximately accurate, then it is plain he has a very poor opinion of Auckland the aesthetic, Wellington the inflated, and Dunedin the solidly prosperous. The ecclesiastical City of the Plain may have society of a more " toney " caste than is to be found elsewhere in the colony; but considered in any other aspect, moral, social, or artistic, she is decidedly in the background. Within the last few days she has given repeated proof "that she is entitled to take the palm for political rancour and rowdyism. The other night Mr Bruce, while attempting to address a public meeting in Christchurch on such a purely abstract question as Free trade, was howled down by a mob of organised Protectionists, and he had to leave the hall without uttering a word of his intended lecture. Last night witnessed a repetition of the disgraceful tactics. A crowded meeting assembled to hear a political address by Mr D. Reese, when, according to the telegraphic report,the proceedings were disgraceful in the extreme. A number of "larrikins" (most of them probably full-grown) pelted the candidate with rotten eggs, rats, etc. Mr Reese managed to speak for some time, but at length the audience^ became unmanageable, and the meeting broke up in confusion. Such conduct, we make bold to say, would be impossible in any other city of New Zealand at the present time; for however keenly the people may enter into the political warfare, they have not as a body attained to that height of civilisation which consists of meeting calm argument by addled eggs and dead rats. Mr Archibald Forbes, we fear, has committed the common mistake of speaking upon insufficient data regarding the colonies and their inhabitants. It would be a sad commentary on the boasted progress that New Zealand has made during the fifty years of her colonial existence, if it should be thought that these displays of ruffianism represent " the head of New Zealand civilisation."