THE TENNYSON COLONY IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9093, 18 April 1891, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE TENNYSON COLONY IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Canon Wilberforce, writing to an English paper, says:— , »A3 there has been a rumour, originated in the Spectator, that disaster has fallen np cn the' Tennyson' colony taken out here by Mr Arnold White in 1888 it w;Il interest your readers to see the MUwing fetter which I have received from Mr Arnold White under the date o£ December 24th, 1890, written from the Tennyson settlement, Queenstown, Cape Colony:— «< • You may remember, before you went to India giving God-speed to the Tennyson ettle'rswho left in the Arab for the Cape in Tune 1888. Between this and then we have had much to encounter. To-day lam giving a harvest home to as prosperous a set of British yeomen as live under the flag. The best man has made £304 this year the worst £119; the average incomeis£™°The average rent and debt charge is £23 There are no defaulters. So much for the financial results. We have killed he drink. This is not relatively, but absolutely, a temperance colony, and this is essential for administration. No colonisation scheme has the ghost of a chance that does not take drink by the throat and throw i out. I am not a professed abs tame:■but speak with solid assurance that absolute abstinence for all hands is the first condition of success-abstinence from top to bottom We have achieved this, and it wants an iron will to keep out the cursed stuff in this land of cheap brandy, dear bread, and scabby sheep I cannot tell you what a vista the success of Tennyson opens out The work has never been done before Lady Ossington took it up and carried it through. At our harvest homo to-day we shall remember you and Mrs Wilberforce among our •• absent friends," albeit the temperature this week has run up to 96 degrees in the shade. Not a single reply has been received in answer to a public offer of mine to pay the passage back to England of any man wishful to bo This is an effective answer to the cavils of our Dutch friends, who compass us about with evil wishes.' "Mr Arnold White's strong words about the uselessness of any colonisation scheme without exclusion of intoxicating drink Tomes with even greater emphasis and force from one not himself an abstainer.

-The last battle fought on the soil of mouth, a natural son of Charles 11, ana tne the French oolony weighs 2Joz.