THE "SYDNEY MORNING HERALD" ON OTAGO.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 102, 14 March 1862, Page 3

THE "SYDNEY MORNING HERALD" ON OTAGO.

One of the most remarkable colonising revolutions of late times may be seen at Ota go, and the surrounding territory. Our readers are aware that to that country a large number of the members of the Free Church of Sotland wended their way, to realise, if possible, their ideal of church government and social life. Their idiosyncrasy was thus stroiifrly impressed upon the first social and political development of the infant State. Fortunately for them, there was no native population to obstruct their movements or to give the General Government any pretence to interfere with the management of their affairs. Had they continued undisturbed by any new and powerful element, the colony would probably have been highly prosperous, as well as highly respectable. The ordinary accumulation of weaith where the habits of a people are industrious, thrifty, and inexpensive, is very rapid, and we do not know that wo can congratulate the province on the change which has passed over it, and which will alter completely its social character. In December, 1860, for instance, there was a population of 7449 males and 5242 females. Then arose the cry of " Gold." Since that time, however, the immigration has chiefly been of adult males, whose destination is the goldflelds, and whose influence on the final condition of the country will be anything but a>"fealisation of the beau-ideal, in pursuit of which the colony of Otago was founded. The immediate material result is, however, surprising. Gold to the value of £727,426, and yielding a duty of X23.4G1, was raised during the half-year. In the first 3 months the port of Dune-din was visited by 28 outside ships of 9660 tons. In the quarter ending 3lst December, there were 164 ships, representing 47,016 tons, besides a trade of great extent with the neighbouring provinces. The duties received were £31,769 for 1860; but for 1801, the duties were £69,737. Thus the discovery of gold has given a sudden and large development to an out-ot-the-way corner of New Zealand, which promises to influence the political destinies of the entire group of New Zealand Colonies; to lead to a transfer of political power; or to the severance of the close relations in which the islands of New Zealand now stand to each other."

Among the effects likely to result from the unexpected expansion of this colony, the establishment of the Panama route seems not the least probable. If a considerable population shall settle there, particularly one constituted of diggers and traders, the question of steam communication will rise into engrossing importance. An agricultural or pastoral colony requires no such accelerated intercourse, but we have already seen that a gold colony is the hot-bed of projects which ripenin a few months, and which in other circumstances could only be the growth of many years. The writers on the spot are of course full of those anticipations which such a sudden spring in the progress of the colony is calculated to suggest. Dunedin, according to them, is to be " the capital of the Great Britain of the South," and the rival of Melbourne, —for Sydney is too obscure to suggest a comparison !

Otago possesses a climate which will contrast with the colonies of North Australia. It is cold enough for the constitution of a North Briton. It will complete those climatic varieties, which lead to different kinds of produce and industry.

We have not now to learn that every new colony expands the trade and increases the resources of the entire sisterhood, and that any loss made by the emigration from the older settlement is distributed over so large a surface as not to be greatly felt. For our part, we ate inclined to rejoice when j accident induces new enterprise, and to see in the [advancement of any new community an accession to the general strength.

One question, of course, is very serious, and which always arises in a gold country—how long a time will the goldfields take to exhaust ? The sudden secession of mining would, of course, be following by great disappointment and distress. We can, however, only regard the. gold digger as the pioneer in any country, and the final prospects of any colony must depend on the settled population, and on the common sources of wealth and prosperity.—s. M. Herald, Feb. 11.