ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue I, 22 April 1843, Page 3

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Southern Cross. Sir, — Although I am well aware that you would not allow your paper to be made the vehicle of publishing any thing injurious to the character of our colony, I am still persuaded that you will agree with. me, that it is not only more manly, but also more wise to cease that system of deception towards ourselves and others, which is too often practised in the colonies, that of always representing things in a favourable light, when facts too unequivocally indicate the contrary. The evil of such a system is twofold, it is injurious to ourselves, and unjust towards others ; and, like every attempt at fraud, is sure in the end to meet its just reward and punishment. If we are eternally proclaiming the goodness of our country, men will soon begin to suspect that we have a design, inasmuch as it is not always the case that a person who has fallen upon a treasure, will readily seek to impart the secret to others. The object of this puffing will soon be discovered to be founded upon self-interest and not upon any generous feelings towards those to whom we proclaim the glad-tidings. The very fact of feeling it necessary to carry on such a system, shows at once that we must have an object ; for if we do well, what more do we want, or what need of striving to convince every man in Europe that we are better off than they. We cannot for a moment suppose that men are so blind as not to see that our motives in thus spreading the tidings of our wealth and happiness are not founded on feelings of generosity and goodwill towards them. Can the settler in New South Wales, for instance, who is himself a ruined man, who cannot sell his cattle for twenty shillings a head, or his sheep for tenpence, and whose wool and butter will not pay half the expence of his establishment, expect to be believed in England when he speaks of the advantages of emigration to New South Wales. Can the " Sydney Herald" expect to convince men of capital at home of the advantage of investing money in sheep (as it strives to do) when its own pages belie the leading article, by showing in their numerous advertisements, that men who paid nothing for their sheep and cattle — men, who had three years ago, thousands of each, without a single shilling of debt, are now ruined, and actually offering their stock at a nominal price to any one who would take them off their hands ? The thing is absurd, Mr. Editor, and let us not follow their example. Let us not rest our hopes of doing good on the expectation of decoying people from England, and making them our victims. Such a hope is unworthy of ourselves, and of the land of our adoption. Like the deeds of the good and virtuous, let our industry, our wealth, and the goodness of our colony, show themselves by their fruits. It is unfortunately too much the feeling in these colonies, to found the settlers' hopes on prosperity upon a future immigration of labour and capital from England. Such a hope is not only false, but a curse to the settler ; it is dishonest and ruinous ; it acts as a check to present industry and exertion, and promotes the colonial vice of speculation in uncultivated country lands, and useless town allotments. It is as deserving of condemnation as bad in its effects, as that against which Lord Byron warned the modern Greeks : — " Trust not for freedom to the Franks" might in the case of the colonist be well converted into " Trust not for wealth to immigration. " The one feeling perpetuates slavery, and the other poverty and dependence. If our country is not in itself good, the introduction of immigrants will not make its soil much richer, or its climate better ; neither will the infliction of misery or misfortune upon others, or their co-partnership with us alleviate or remove ours. If, on the other hand, our lot is cast in a goodly land, let us bless our good fortune, and enjoy in gratitude and comfort, the goods the Gods have provided. If my own hopes of the future prosperity of New Zealand, rested in any measure on the chance of emigration from England, I would quit its shores by the first opportunity, and leave it for ever and ever. Few men will be foolish enough to leave their native land for the purpose of throwing away their money upon the settlers of this or any other colony. Rational men will only forsake the comforts of home with the view of increasing their capital ; in vain shall we persuade them to try their fortune in New Zealand, unless we can show that we have bettered our own condition. In vain shall we tell of fertile plains and pleasant vallies — of flaxen fields and piny forests — of beds of coals and lakes of sulphur — of veins of silver — mines of lead — islands of manganese, and hills of copper, if the possessor of them be still poor and beggerly. We can tell of all this, Mr. Editor ; we can prove that our climate is the very best, the most pleasant and the healthiest in the

whole world, that our land is exceedingly fertile, yielding abundantly all the fruits of the earth. We can truly boast of the mineral wealth of our country — we can speak of the great value of our flax for Furopean manufactures — we can speak of the ships that might be built from our forests — of the comforts that might be enjoyed, and the fortunes that might be made in our country. But if you ask what account have turned all these advantages ? I fear the answer must be unsatisfactory : we have been under bad stewards, we have not been allowed to avail ourselves of our favourable position. Our colony has not advanced as it might have done. Of the cause they tended to impede its progress, and rear o prosperity. It was my intention to have treated in this letter. but I must defer the consideration of this subject to another time. In your next publication I will treat of the causes which have brought about our present embarrassment, and suggest some means whereby we may yet be enabled to improve our condition to avail ourselves of the advantages of our position, and to develope the many natural resources of our adopted country. I am, Sir, Yours, &c., VERITAS (To be continued) Spring Colds. — There cannot be much fear of the person who, like Spenser's March (" Faerie Queene"), shall bend his brows to the blast, and shall dig his rood of land, and sow his bushel of seed, whether the bleak north, or the biting cast wind scatter consumption and death among the feeble inmates of the parlour, or the half-famished tenants of the hut or the garret. Free exposure to every wind that blows, provided always that requisite clothing and activo exercise be attended to, would do more to banish coughs and consumption than all the fox-glove and Iceland-moss that ever grew, or all the bleeding, blistering, or long rubbings, that were ever tried. Confine yourself to a warm parlour and you will shudder at every blast, and probably catch a bad cough, or a cold fever, at every slight change of weather, and will find it dangerous to venture out of doors during the cold and chill days of winter and spring ; but by free exposure and risk exercise you may leave to set the weather at defiance, and put on the vigorous looks of young spring, instead of the church-yard cough and undermining fever of age and debility. — (Time's Telescope.) SELECTIONS FROM THE LAST BATCH AMERICAN PAPERS. — A SOLLMN THOUGHT — When we look abroad over the great ports patch of the world, and see the innumerable ridges tilled to overflowing with the small kind of taters, a feeling of sadness comes over us at the thought — that they will never be any larger ! — PRODIGIOUS STRENGTH — A man celebrated for the largo quantities of rum on whiskey that he swallowed, had so strong, a breath that he couldn't held it in to save his life, and so hd died. " Think there's any danger, mister meana-geery-men, from that Boy Contractor ?" "Oh, no," said the man, "the serpent don't bite he swallows his wittals whole." " I never did see such a wind and such a. storm," said a man in a coffeeroom. "And pray, Sir," inquired a would-be-wit, " since you saw the wind and the storm, what might their colour be ?" " The wind " blue" and the : storm "rose," was the ready rejoinder.(Scotch Paper.) AMERICAN TOAST. — " The ladies : the only endurable aristocracy, who rule without laws — judge without jury — decide without appeal — and are never in the wrong." SELF FLATERY. — It often amuses me to hear men impute all their misfortunes to fate, luck, or destiny, whilst their successes or good fortune they ascribe to their own sagacity, cleverness or penetration. It never occurs to such minds that light and darkness are one and the same, emanating from and being born of the same nature. — (S. T. Coleridge.) A recent New York paper, speaking of the decease of a coloured woman, who was stated to have died from natural causes, heads the article with the following title : — " Died without medical aid !" Why is a man with his eyes shut, like an illiterate schoolmaster ? — Because he keeps his pupils in darkness. A young lady, the other day, upon being proposed to by a poor gentleman, turned up her nose at him to such a degree that she fractured the bridge of it ! Love, like the plague, is often communcated by clothing and money — (Miss Marcineau.) The Power of Steam. — it is on the rivers, and the boatman may repose on his oars ; it is in high-ways, and begins to exert itself along the courses of land conveyance ; it is at the bottom of mines, a thousand feet below the earth's surface ; it is in the mill, and in the workshops of the trades. It rows, it pumps, it excavates, it carries it draws, it lifts ham-, mers, it spins, it weaves, it prints.