A NEW YORK JOURNAL ON NEW ZEALAND.

Marlborough Express, Volume VI, Issue 345, 2 December 1871, Page 8

A NEW YORK JOURNAL ON NEW ZEALAND.

The New York Tribune of August 31, i has the following: Afar in the youth Pacific—south-eastward of Australia—lie [ two large, a smaller, and several insiguifi- j cant islands, discovered by Tasman in 1642, j and named Now Zealand, alter a province of Holland. The famous English discoverer, Captain Cook, visited them over a century later, and made the first survey of their coasts in 1770. Hew Zealand now constitutes a British colony, and may be regarded us the antipodes of Great Britain, Ireland, and their surrounding islets, about equal to them in area, (95,000 square miles), and with a very similar climate. Hut Hew Zealand is of volcanic origin, and is studded with mountains, the highest 14,000 fe(t high, snow-crowned, like several otners, while one active volcano is 6,000 feet high. Perhaps there is no other portion of the world more inviting to immigrants than Hew Zealand. Its climate is mild and equable ; its soil fertile and easily worked ; its extensive coast line thickly studded with admirable harbours; it is in good part covered with excellent timber; it has vast plains and slopes made verdant with succulent grasses, whereon cattle and sheep thrive without cured food, or any shelter but such as the never leafless woods afford ; it has plenty of excellent coal, and its mountains yield gold in considerable quantities. "Wheat, barley, oats, and potatoes grow luxuriantly ; but the chief wealth of her farmers is found in their flocks and herds; wool, timber, gold dust, and ores being their principal exports. 'The settlers arc mainly British, and generally persons of superior intelligence and enterprise. They are rapidly increasing in numbers, productions and wealth. Their annual wool clip is estimated at ten millions of pounds. . Hew Zealand has ’recently been brought into direct connection with this country by a line of steamships running once in four weeks from San Francisco to Dunedin on the noith-east coast of the Middle Island, and to other ports of the colony. The necessary length of the passage is twentyfive days; so that mails from London, crossing this continent by the. Union and Central Pacific Eailroads, may be delivered in Hew Zealand in six weeks. As yet, however, we understand that some detention as Honolulu is encountered, so that the actual lime averages nearly two months. Labour being scarce and dear in Hew Zealand, as in all prosperous colonies, the Provincial Council of Canterbury has appointed Mr. L. Coates, of the house of Taylor, and Co., as a-special commissioner io this country, to examine and report upon our labour-saving machinery, especially that which is employed in agriculture. Mr. Coates will visit some of our implement manufactories, cheese factories, State fairs, &c., and we commend him to the regard of those he may meet.