PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 90, 17 April 1890, Page 5

PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN.

Sir Charles Dilke on New Zealand*

Copious Extracts, Etc.

(From Our Special Correspondent.)

London, February 6. The following series of extracts from Si r Charles Dilke's book are* much fuller and more copious than those forwarded last mail. Protection in New Zealand. The year 1838 was marked by a distinct advance in the direction of protection in New Zealand as well as in Queensland and South Australia, and protection of the Victorian type has triumphed in all three colonies. The New Zeaianders, like the Taeinanians, call their tariff a revenue tarifit, and assert that there are four strong free-traders in the Ministry, which has lately increased the duties ; but this is mere dust for colonial fres-tradere' eyes. ,Sib Robert Stout. Sir Robert Stoat is an able speaker, and a well-read, thodghtful man;_ an ardent advocate of temperance principles, a strong democrat, and in religious matters an active "secularist." Sir Robert Stout's honesty, to my mind, is not doubtful, and he • has proclaimed his convictions in favour of State ownership of land in such a way as to be politically damaging to himself, at a time when he knew that the opinion of the colony was against him. He was damaged by his coalition with Sir Juliue Vogel in the Stout-Vogel Government, from ISB4 to 1887. Sir Robert Stout's opponents are divided between those who foolishly question his uprightness, and those who think that he weakly yielded to aclever advocate and an accomplished party leader, who is charged by his enemies with having plunged the colony into financial embarrassments from which io is now recovering. Sir Harry Atkinson is carrying out a policy of retrenchment, very necessary in New Zealand as I shall show, but now that Sir Julius Vogel has decided to give up colonial politics, for a time at least, one of the principal itema of the strength of the Atkinson Ministry namely, the terror of " Vogel finance," has disappeared, and the Ministry has begun to suffer from internal discord.

Lord Onslow will find, as Sir William Jervois found, that the existence of towns larger than the capital, and the jealousies of the former provinces and their chief cities are difficulties in the way of New Zealand governors. On the other hand, the colony sometimes sees cauee to rejoice at the, absence of a great city which forms and guides opinion, as is the case in Victoria aud New South Wales with Melbourne and Sydney respectively. • y The legislative peculiarities of New Zealand are its system of Government) life insurance, its electoral law, which leaves the demarcation of districts to a board appointed for the purpose, and its combination of a heavy succession duty, graduated according to amount from 2J to 10 per cent,, in case of strangers, making at the outside j 13 per cent, in all, together withia property J tax on all property over £500. _■ '. Aa regards the liquor question thei Queensland and New Zealand A«cte are the | fullest Local Option Acta in existence in any Australasian colonies, and give the temperance party thau which they ask in England more than any other non-Canadian Acts; but there is a good deal of evasion, in New Zealand as in South Australia, of all licensing provisions in portions of the colony. New Zealand, like.Canada, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and the great inajo'rity of our colonies, has payment of members, and the reduction of the number of members in the New Zealand Parliament is made doubly beneficial by this fact. Such a reduction was indeed in my opinion as necessary in New Zealand as it was gome years ago in Greece, and the success of M. Tricoupis in halving the number of members and doubling the taxes shows that such operations are not, so difficult, in a parliamentary sense, as theyare. supposed to be. ■-, ; . In New Zealand generally it may be; said , that, in spite of the financial condition of the colony, which is nothing like so bad as* it would be if the figures referred to an old? country and not to a new and undeveloped! one, the people are contented. Moreover, a new wave of prosperity seemsabout to break upon Ithe colony. The beautiful climate and the fertile soil make, as has been out by an eminent colonial politician, the women and children of the settlers happy with a happiness that belongs to working women where the cows give plenty of milk, and butter, the fowls give plenty ofeggsithe land smiles upon them, and the children thrive. Under such circumstances settlers can bear a good deal of taxation, without flinching. Population Possibilities. If New Zealand were populated like Italy or Japan she would have,'from twenty to thirty millions of., inhabitants within her. boundaries. Her soil ia fer- ; tile; her climate as good or better; her minerals much more valuable ; and there can: be no reason why this colony, small though it is as compared with most of the Australian colonies, should not one day hold thirty millions of prosperous and*contented*, people.,.' \; - - • | ' , " Vahiety, of Production.

The advantage which will be'the making of New Zealand, is that of variety of pro-i< Ruction,. which she possesses in a higher degree even than ; Queensland, and which must always cause her to be - rich through whatevermoraentarydepressionshemaypass. Sheep country, cattle country, minerals of every, kind, timber, fruit-r-all the productions of the whole of the Australian colonies, and others which they do not afford, are found in united New Zealand.' Her coal is not placed where it is most wanted, but, nevertheless, her steam coal is most excellent ; gold still exists, probably in large quantities, and the other minerals are all present, and will undoubtedly in time begin to, yield their harvest. New Zealand has to. some-extent been handicapped by a war expenditure. Repudiation, which has been suggested by some English books which have aroused fierce indignation in the colony, is as unlikely in the case of New Zealand as , in the case of any of the colonies of Australia, and the colony is now settling down into what is; likely to prove an era of more : permanent prosperity than slie has yet enjoyed. V:. : Character of IfEW Zealand Settlers.,. There is a good:deal of originality in ;the character of - r the New Zealand settlers, j Men holding'peculiar and- even eccentric! opinions obtain power and influence in New, Zealand more readily than in the Australian colonies. While Victoria was/first in the introduction of many radical reforms, and while Queensland has at the ; present; moment taken her place as the most demon-1 strative and active, politically, speaking, of ] the colonies, New Zealand is now, coming to the front in the field of political and social experiment. •.-; -- :i ' '■,•'/"." • COMPARISONS. ;' ,' Physically it may be said thab there is absolutely no resemblance between New Zealand and Australia, except in the fact that gold and wool are produced in each. Wβ nnd, of course, in New Zealand much that is.common to New Zea'and and to j Australia, but common also to theee and to the Canadian Dominion — much that is generally colonial i blackened stumps about the fields, the absorption of the community in "agricultural or pastoral pursuits, good fellowship, the manliness of the men, the plentiful, V perhaps - use of ■ tea| even the elangj > dißecending

as it does from the diggers' tongue, first born in California about ,1850, bufe nothing can be more complete than: * the contrast between Australia and Zealand. Marcus Clarke has told us that weird melancholy is the dominant note of Australian scenery, which is true enough i for the Australian landscape is as lonely as melancholy, and as solemn as the Roman Campagna, with the added weirdnese of. bark-shedding trees and of uncouth beasts and birds. New Zealand is wholly different—severe and frowning in the south, open and alluring in the north, with a bright Polynesian loveliness. Aus- . tralia is, as we have seen in summer, a land of dry rivers, brown grass,, yellow lurid glare and brassy sun ; and in' the greater part of win ter a land of blue sky. andsoftsmokyhaze. New Zealand insummer. may resemble parts of Australia in winter,- * but she has a real winter in her south islands and a wet winter in her extreme north. The west coast of the Middle or South Island.whence come the New Zealand - coal arid gold, is a country of constant rain, ? of glaciers and of tree fern, and clattering; parroquets, inexpressively distinct from the dried-up Australian gbldfields of Sandhurst)/ South central Australia has the Greece; whilst New Zealand, owing to its ■ * enormous length from north to south, has,.* like Japan, and for the same reason* all the. „ ■ climatesof theworldexcepttjiedrybrilliancy,;. • of Australia or Greece. New Zealand,' .•, ' which is almost tropical at the Bay of. "■, Islands, is Scotch at Invercargill. It isi happy for Australians that they can ylelt). the perpetual snows, and stand sometimes by the rushing, murderous torrent rivers'■ of New Zealand usually half losbin their;' gigantic stony beds. They find something there to dream of when they return to their native creeks—beds of small rivers, "con-l; eisting of mere baked mud—and swelter ■•, through the still heab ( of their long dry. days, watching the mirage through the fierce yet healthy heat of their burnt-up. plains. ; r '■/ New Zealand' Sceneby. New Zealand scenery, with/that ,'o* Japan, is the most beautiful of 'the, temperate world. The one drawback to -, living in the loveliest part of New/Zea» V land is the drawback to Japan—the windiThe west coast of the South or; A; Island of New Zealand is unequeiled in they: ; combination of jungle with low : glacier./ •It is as fine a coast in lbs way as the west*, - coast of Guatemala, but it bears no resem-., blance to that or any other in the globe.; , The glaciers conic down .almost as low aa that of Norway on account of the great rain-j fall, the constant damp, v end the absence of ■ a true' winter; while the tree ferns of, . - the largest size resemble palm trees mi';-,;: their apparent tropical loveliness. In the. central" part of the North Island, in a warm,. and less wet climate, having just enougtii; i ; rain to moisten its, rich soil, the ,snow, peak-; ." of Mount Egmorit and the strange white} mass of Tongariro rival the snow dome offr Mount Cook of the Southern Alps. On the- * coast of the Middle or South Island are fiords as wild as those of Norway or : Labrador, and in the extreme south rocks as rugged as those of the Sanguenay. It ia indeed to ■be hoped that in our day New: Zealand may be able to export us come; thing besides wool and frozen meat, for the, . true poetry of nature should belong to the New Zealand youth. I New Zeaband; and the Pacific. If New Zealand wishes to play a great.* part in the fixture. inlthe/Pacific she will: : do well to take farther steps to strengthen herself in a military sense. "" ,It would be . impossible .to return to (he New Zealand programme be-' cause no arrangements between England, France and Germany would riowv . suffice, inasmuch a? the Americana . have abandoned their former poeition of not interesting tfaemsebrea in the affairs ofthe Pacific, and .have virtually, obtained a .magnificent harbour-£ti Samoa, have sub- . sidised.a steamship, line, and- have shown; that they mean to play a part in it the Pacific. Intercolonial Federation. It would be wise, even at some sacrifice of fbrin, to bring.New Zealand into federation, aa she would strengthen Victoria in -\ resisting thepossible seceseion ' frdm the British Empire of oue colony. The clause allowing a colony to withdraw from federal tion would, of course, have no bearing one way or the other upon the larger point of withdrawal from the Empire. The New ; Zealanders seem generally to take the view ; ■ that the Australasian colonies ought to pre« vent tho isolated secession from the' Empire > of a single colony. Theyargue that Canada is a federal dominion large enough to have an opinion of her own, and ttiat if Canada wished to leave the British Empire it is obvious, that she could:abt be:prevented from so doing, but that this view is not apr ":'■'., plicable to colonies generally imd without limit. : ,'■;."■ ■■■' " •' ■ ■ ■ .:. ■■•',■ '■ ,< '':■ ■ ■ Means ought to be found to Zealand that there is no intention of making , her a dependency of Australia. The poinb at issue is in fact that point. The Austra-- - Han'colonies in any matter in whirjh tho interests of Australia and of tiiu far detached New Zealand were different would j easily out-vbtel New Zealand on the Federal Council. New Zealand desires to have a general control by her Legislature of thb" ' applicability or non-applicability of federalacts to the colony t of New Zealand. It is a natural feeling, but one which miphfc he satisfied and yefc New Zealand take part in the Federal Council. . '