THE GARDEN OF NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 8846, 25 November 1889, Page 3

THE GARDEN OF NEW ZEALAND.

fBY A VISITOR.]

If you believe all you hear, says the bid saw, you may eat all you see. If '.you believe all you hear about Taranaki you will cultivate the belief that it'is the most distressful district, • living • ou the ’money it squeezes out of “the overburdened taxpayers of the Colony,” and, in short, that if there is a corner of this globe where depression and begging walk in hand and hand, that corner is Taranaki. People who fall so low as to be members of Parliament, or who hold-such positions as compel them • to listen to the indescribable twaddle that is generally talked there, must, of necessity, have that impression, for nothing is said about Taranaki that is not to her discredit. In such circumstances you are to be excused if, at the end of your railway journey, you get out of the train at New Plymouth with dejected mein and sombre countenance. You will go to the White Hart Hotel, of course, where man lives like the pugnacious male of the poultry species, and subsequently sleep the sleep of the just or the obfuscated according to the quantity and class of ■liquor you lay in before retiring. Next morning you will prepare to go into the highways and byways to meet sorrowful men of business, who are all bankrupt and poorly clad people, who ‘haven’t got any work, and are on tire verge of starvation. _ This is what you have been led to anticipate. Now, how entirely and pleasantly ■ different is all that is to be seen from all this. You shall walk down Devon-street all day, and along the back streets all the next day, and see no signs of distress even with the aid of a ten horse-power microscope- There, as in all other places, the people in answer to the usual question, “How are things in Now Plymouth?” will say “ Very bad indeed !” It is one ■ of the weaknesses of human nature to make “things’’out to be worse than they are, and New Plymouth human nature is no better than its neighbour. But business appears to bo tolerably good w,th them, there is hardly any crime, labour is scarce, and living very cheap. House rent is exceedingly low—so far down, in fact, that one can live in a very good cottage, with large ■extent of front and backyard for little more than nothing a week. Spite of its distance from a market for its produce, and the comparative difficulties of traffic with other parts of the Colony, the land is so good, and so peculiarly suited in every respect to pastoral and agricultural pursuits, that New Plymouth, as the centre of the district, must always be tolerably well to do until science gives us cheap substitutes for butter, cheese, and other articles of produce now absolutely essential to the human system. In the event of Sir Julius Vogel’s proposed company to work the iron sand and petroleum being a success, New Plymouth will bo a very important part of New Zealand. The iron sand and the petroleum are both there, and please don’t forget it. In the black shiny sand, stretching for miles along the beach, there is “a mine of wealth untold, almost as •good as gold.” Nay, as good as, if not bettor than gold, because it will provide a steady continual industry which the pernicious but useful yellow metal never ,givos. Petroleum must exist in large quantities somewhere in that corner ■down by the sad sea waves near the Sugar Loaves. When the tide is out you may see the petroleum glistening on the surface of little pools of water and trickling out from the land. As yet, however, the well from which it comes hasn’t been found, in spite of an awful bore of about 200 f t; and in consequence those people who go cut to gather petroleum have to skim it off the surface of sea water. Any person who would like to taste the liquor thus primitively collected can do so at the office of this, paper. As a show place, New Plymouth, to my mind, is far better than Ne’son. The ■quality is better and the quantity is larger. The peculiar charm about New Plymouth is the abundance of vegetation, due to the richness of the soil. Only a few steps off the main street, however, there is foothold for shrubbery and tree ferns ; these are flourishing like young bay trees. Then the people themselves appreciate the natural beauties of their town, and do all they can to set them off by artificial means. The houses are invariably richly painted, and the inevitable patches of flowers make the place really look what it is—the garden of New Zealand. The recreation ground (“ the rec,” as slangy people call it) is, indeed, something to be proud of. The peculiar thing about it is that it has nearly all been made artificially, and that principally by means of voluntary contributions, A swamp has been drained, and a lake left in its place, roads have been laid out and cut, and paths gravelled and kept in good order, trees planted, and everything else done to make the place attractive. Once a New Plymouth man (a Mr Davis) was lucky enough to draw The Poet in a racing sweep. The Poet Avon, and Mr Davis lauded about L2OO, all of which he spent in putting a handsome bridge across the head of the lake. “The Poet’s Bridge ” they call it, though for my part I think “Davis’ Bridge” would have been better. However, that is an ■example of the generosity on which the recreation ground was made. Strange as it may seem, the cemetery is another of the “show places,” but purely as a cemetery. Situated on the top of a low hill it is one of the pi’etticst spots imaginable. In spring, avlioii the grass is green and the trees look fresh, and the sun shines beneficently on the railings around the graves, the cemetery is a place where you might spend many a thoughtful hour —a place where one might almost wish to be buried, AA’hen his time comes, aide by side Avith the good old people of the early days, and near at hand to the bodies of the soldiers who fell during the Taranaki Avar, and Avho are buried in a quiet corner of the cemetery. Innumerable beautiful drives are to be found in the immediate vicinity of the town, and if you are for something more romantic there are “the meeting of the Avaters” (a delicate compliment, that, to Moore, by the early residents), and “The Lovers’ Walk,” the locality of many a scene which might have interested us a great many years ago. However slow the progress may be, Taranaki will always have before it a future, the exact nature of which avc cannot prognosticate, though Ave can be certain it will bo a great one. For the present the Colony is not big enough for such ventures, and the capital and labour at its disposal will not allow it to work such . a field to advantage

in competition Avith older countries. But it seems to roe absolutely certain that the time is coming when the Cape Egraont district will be a very important part of Neiv Zealand, if, for instance, the Mokau coal deposits were opened up what a difference it would make all over the Colony! All these things, however, cannot be done in a day, or in a comparatively largo aggregation of days. The building of Rome, as has been said, occupied more than twenty-four hours ; and the Taranaki people must, for the present, follow Longfellow s advice to “ Learn to labour and to wait. Meanwhile the value of the iron and petroleum will never be lost sight of while the indefatigable MrE. M. Smith remains an illustrious member of the community. The history of the world is replete wrih the names of men of energy and pluck, but all of those men arc actually slothful and lazy when compared to E.M. S. New Plymouth is an excellent place either to live in or to A’isit. Living, as I have said, is very cheap, the climate is good, and the town itself is exceedingly picturesque, and quiet without being slow. For visitors it has many charms, and after all it is so very far off. Aa to it being povertystricken, that is sheer nonsense, Suporficial politicians who have no chance at all of making a reputation by any means in which the exercise of brains is necessary, have taken up the anti-harbour expenditure craze as a means to notoriety, and Taranaki, having a harbour, must suffer with the others until Time, the great civiliser, comes round and kills _ off all wooden-headed members of Parliament. Meantime, Avith ordinary luck, it will rub along very nicely.