MR WASON'S LECTURE ON NEW ZEALAND.

Evening Star, Issue 11454, 23 January 1901, Page 6

MR WASON'S LECTURE ON NEW ZEALAND.

!A. GOOD WORD FOR THE GOVERN-! MENT. k THE CLIMATE'S CANDID FRIEND. | [From Our Special Correspondent l .] i LONDON, December 14. § A record audience assembled at the Im-ra penal Institute last Monday night to hearp ||Mr J. Cat heart Wason lecture on Newg Of the 300 present, a large pro-| gfportion were New Zealander.?, and it •n-aslf ||amusing to hoar one colonial correct an-p pother as to the whereabout; of a Christ-g bridge displayed on the screen, and 9 Mto witness fhe dismay of the Dunedinites jjj pwhen the lecturer, unable to see the pic- § ||tures, described a view • of the Edin-1 pburgh of the South, with the Cargill | in the foreground, as "a smallg in New Zealand." Prominent in thel were the Agent-General (who tookfi Mthe chair), Mrs Reeves, Mrs Lascelles, MrsfJ ||Wason, Mr, Mrs, and Misses Dymock, Mrs| :||Elworthy and her son and daughter, Lieu-| Francis, Mr W. L. Miles (in-| invalided Home after doing good service withffi ||the Imperial Guides in Natal, and Mr and Mrs H. Von Haast, an'dj EjjMr -George Be'etham. E M Mr Reeves, who was suffering from a se-| pivere cold, and who declared himself a ter-| l&rible example of the New Zealander exiled!? the delightful climate of his natives ||land, briefly introduced the lecturer. Mrß ||Wason, whose style was a good deal racier! that of most-of the Institute's lec-| ||turers, began with a tribute to the Maoris,! H whose bitterest complaint when New Zea-B ||land was burning with patriotic fervor was| ||that they were not permitted to fight the| battles. Thev were well treated* «jby the Government, and had representation! jsjinHhe Mew Zealand Parliament. ■ They were! ggentiemen to the backbone, orators, sports-l »open, and, except on one occasion in theirs 'l} W WarS a ' rS wit ' l Us ' alwavs treated their prisoners! j|with kindnsss and consideration. With thel I Maoris food was so scarce that they consi-i |dered the waste of it desecration. Duringjjj gone of the early wars the English soldiers! •g broke out of barracks, commandeered theg ijg Maoris potatoes, and threw what they could! [| not eiU ' Qto e river - act roused injj , 1 the Maoris the same feeling as the theft ofg .. I the Nelson relics roused in the British peo-| t H l J ' e- '^ e on * e nding regiment was " spotted,"! Sand when some of -this regiment fell priso-g |ners Liter on they were cruelly ill-treated! i % by the Maoris. J m Something in the toil and climate im-| pressed the white native-born New Zea-| landers with the characteristics of the* Maoris. Like the latter, the young New! Zealanders were thorough sportsmen,! lighters (as the South African campaign! showed), temperate (the habit of drinking! 5 prevailing among the ne'er ; do-weels fromg $ the Old Country), but addicted to gam-| i jg bling. Among the native-born population,! | too, there was a contempt for wealth and itsl % surroundings. | , g; .'fhe climate depended on what part of 1 ' | New Zealand you were in. Personally hel i would not call it a delightful climate ; it wasl |ja healthy, invigorating climate. Speakings | as a Scotchman, a delightful climate was nct| I an advantage, while a bad climate was the| 6 making of the countey. B I As for the Government, the present race! | of statesmeu, to which he had been more or! jglless opposed, had devoted to a greater ex-| P tent than ever before their attention to thel I development and material progress of theg e] country. Their intentions were excellent,! I and the measures carried by them in the faces 1 of violent opposition had redounded to theg | prosperity of the colony. | I It had been said that the first explorer! | who reached the North Pole vould find therel |a Scotchman, with a snuffbox and a glass! |; of whisky. When the Canterbury pilgrims, f. jg fifty years ago. arrived in the first four shipsfi 1 they wire encouraged to find two hardy sonsß of Scotland, the Deans brothers, had already jj there before them, having named the \ %\ stream which wound through the plains the I after their own little brook in Scot-* £ land. * B- Mr Wason went on to draw a contrast s St between the aspect of the plains when he first i ! a settled on theni as ;i .sheep-farmer in 1867, | Ijblcak and desolate, but girt by a splendid i Ijcresccnt. of snowy mountains, with but a s ascoro of houses, no trees, roads, bridges,|? sjchurches, schools, crtfps, and only a few \ SfloclvS of merino sheep, arid their appear- S ijanco at the present dny, teeming with life, j Igdotted with thousands of happy homes, 1 covered with crops and stock of all kinds, l intersected by railways, roads, and water , races, and possessing large towns with every i appliance of civilisation. Reverting to the » climate. Mr Wason, according to the tini-1 Kjversal concurrence of all New Zealanders J ifpresent, painted fa- too gloomy a picture, t Indwelling (in exceptional rainstorms ;<nd hur- jj Ifricanes as if the normal condition of the Can- ? [Sjterbury Plains was to be deluged by down-? iipfurs or swept by cyclones. In the early | . Sdays he recalled a three days' rainstorm in t 'Miho middle of summer, in which the sheep ? , gdied like flies, 4,000 perishing on his own jr ; for want of shelter. This disaster was I pa blessing in disguise, for it led to extensive | 1 He, recalling the old ScotchJ I Issaying, " Stick in a tree, Jock, it'll be grow-| , sling when you're sleeping,'' was one of thel [ gjfirst to plant on the face of opposition from! i iShis neighbors, who thought be was only j I destroying so much pasture. Not two years j ago there was a sandstorm, after which there \ was not a blade of grass or a gorse hedge ; left, the water races were silted up. the trees j were bent down, the plantations covered in { two feet of quicksand, the fleeces of the j: sheep were smothered with sand, the wheat 5 was blown topsy-turvy, and tried to grow I the wrong way up. They ploughed their \ land again, and in two months the grass was I growing, the hedge* blossoming, and the t homesteads happy once more. ' After a reference to the race meeting. Mrj; Wason refuted the charge brought against { New Zealanders by Anthony Troll ope of i •fi|" blowing." All they had tried to do was? make the visitor realise what the country \, ilkwas in the early days and what it had grown \ ;||<to when he saw it, calling his attention to| Ijjthe rapid advance of a progressive | 3 In the early days New Zealand owed very|j ilittle money; now she owed a great deal to* jthe advantage both of the colony and thel' capitalist. The colony,would always* /offer a great outlet for British capital, andi ; ||ihcr ability to pay her way was steadily in- \ While there was no great avenue -j i||for speculation, no royal road to wealth, lljcountry in the world offered such oppor-S ffitunities to men to establish happy, com- i homes for their families. .; Finally, Mr Wason called attention to the« offered to the tourist and sports-L '||?man. The U.S.S. Company gave the travel-| Hler by sea a high degree of comfort, and the*] figcivility and attention on board, the lecturerl liisaid, he had never seen equalled anywherejj Seise in the world. The fisherman needed to^

!hire no nver-he could make fine bagg of rout all over the country, and at.no cost; the shot could shoot practically Ti-here Ke pleased, and could get the finest deer'stalking in tie world. It was not, as in Scotand, where you had to rent a great deer forest, and your enormous expenses amonnted to about £IOO for every deer killed, and where you lived just as you should not, in the lap of luxury. The millionaire should harden his heart and go to New Zealand, pitch his tent and live in the open air, where the expense was a mere nothing, the Got|verament charging but £5 a heacL. and jgpJacing a limit on the number to be killed. gThere was even one sport, the shooting of the ||kea, for which the Government would pay githe sportsman. M In moving a vote of thanks to the lecturer ||the Agent-General thanked him for his vindication of the justice and fair pf play that had characterised the New Zeap|lander's. treatment of the Maoris, a vindicate tion all the more welcome coming so soon ||after the extraordinary statement credited ||to the Governor of Fiji. M The limelight views shown by Mr Wason pinclnded, as usual, too many scenes of " Zea||landia, stern and wild," of rugged mountains, Sgchilly lakes, seething solfataras, and fierce SMaoris, not at all calculated to attract the rayeoman farmer. m I have pointed out before, and I must"do ff so aga:n, the advisability of the Governtjment's sending Home a complete series of ||views of the industries, the amusements, and ||the settled districts of the colony. The neat the rich crops, the flocks of and herds of cattle, reaping, shearing, ffethreshing, ploughing—these are what should ||be exhibited to the great British public. II The indispensable limelights should con||vince the intending settler that he is going to ||nn Antipodean England, not to a land of grandeur and solemn seclusion. ||The virgin forest is to him not so attrac||tive as the fruitful and matronly plain. The ||lay to lure the emigrant is not ' She wanjgdered down the mountain side,' but ' Oh, U|the roast meat of New Zealand.' The pre-. ||sent series of lantern slides is too much conjfftfined to nature unadorned.