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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 19, Issue 1514, 21 December 1872, Page 2

The Hon. Mr Balhgate and the Hon. Mr Reynolds, the two gentlemen lately added to the Waterhouse-Vogel Government, have been on a visit to Dunedin, which they conjointly represent, bub declined at present to give any accounts of their wardship* although upon the spot, owing to " other engagements."

"Reunion apppears to he a notable instance of what might result from unintelligent cultivation. At one time known as the fsle of Bourbon, it was regarded as the garden of the Indian Ocean. The island is now, however, anything but prosperous, and its altered condition is attributed by competent authority to a change in the climate produced by the indiscriminate destruction of the forests in the interior. On the emancipation of the slaves in 1848 a vast tuajority of the people retired to the mountains, where they ** squatted,'' maintamg a precarious existence either by charcoal burning or by clearing small plots to grow their maize. Tu this way they have destroyed nearly all the forest* in the island, and now, says the Planters' Price (Dtirteni, that all.the squatters have become k is not likely any efficient means will be put in execution to- save what remains, or replant what has been destroyed. (Springs and streams, we are told, are diying ttp in every direction,, aftd if some artificial system of irrigation is not at once de*. ised, there is feat* lest the beautiful and historical inland will become something like Aden oi' tlie lied Sea*