WELLINGTON.

Otago Witness, Issue 41, 28 February 1852, Page 2

WELLINGTON.

Anniversary Fete.— The 12th Anniversary of the arrival of the first settlers was celebrated on Thursday, January 22nd, by acquatic and rural sports. The affair passed off admirably, and the utmost order and good' feeling was manifested throughout the -whole of the day's sports by all who witnessed or took part in them.

New Zealand as ax Emigration Field compared WITH THE OTHER AUSTRALIAN COLONIES. — One of the early colonists of Cook's Straits, who has recently passed some time in New South Wales and Van. Diemen's Land, writes as follows. — "All that I saw in Australia and Van Diemen's Land has only tended to raise New Zealand in my estimation as a field for emigration.. The climate of all those neighbouring colonies is so very inferior to that of New Zealand, that there cannot be a question for a moment as to which of them is to be preferred. After New Zealand I think Melbourne stands highest. Van Diemen's Land I was sadly disappointed with ; it is almost all hill land, and a very rough inferior sort of country ; in fact, the runs cannot compare with the "VVairau and Port Cooper. Motueka would he considered a first-rate run, so you may imagine what the country is like. The whole of it, too, is wooded, and has to be cleared at an expense (with convict labour) of from £4 to £5 an acre ; added to which they are so subject to summer frosts that they can never make sure of any crop they put into the land. The climate too, from the same cause, is but ill adapted for stock, and they do not appear to do well, at least horses and cattle ; sheep are so well protected by their fleeces that they do not feel the sudden changes of temperature so much ; but then the runs and the whole country is so very much over-stocked that even they do not thrive as they ought to do. Horses had coated afresh when I left New Zealand at the end of October, and Van Diemen's Land they had hardly got their summer coats in February, so that you may imagine how unfavourable the climate is to that sort of stock. The difference, too, was most obvious in the growth of young stock as compared with those in Van Diemen's Land, those in New Zealand being almost half as large again." — Wellington Independent.