South Canterbury Times. MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1883.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3352, 31 December 1883, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1883.

A very short time after this issue of the South Canterbury Times is in the hands of our readers, another year will have passed away, and we shall have entered upon a new page of our history. Speaking generally, the year 1883 has presented similar features to those of its predecessors. There has been the same succession of national troubles and international grievances, of unexpected events and deplorable losses, of progress and failure. Mankind still advances, in mental and material progress, and yet there remain many inequalities and abuses unswept away. On the whole, the condition of things is hopeful, but there remains apparently, not less work for the reformer and philanthropist. Coming nearer home, and referring to the material progress of the colony, we are bound to own that the past year has been, if not absolutely disastrous, at any rate an exceptionally trying one. A time of general depression appears to have come. It is not of Timaru, but of the colony, that this must be said. Yet we cannot believe the present depression will become permanent stagnation; for there are resources within our borders, which must preserve us from ruin. The hard times are not generally ascribed to the right source. The country is not poor and barren, it is rich and fertile ; and we must have faith and courage. But the new-born hopes of colonists carried them too far ahead, conducted them into rash speculation,and created an impatient thirst for wealth. The consequence was that property acquired a fictitious value,and a collapse followed. Then it was discovered that extensive speculations had been carried on, on borrowed capital, and that many an apparently sound business had been ruinously conducted. The consequence was that the colony had to pull up short, and reductions followed everywhere. Enterprise and speculation stood still, and the host of men who hang on these were thrown out of employment. The results we know only too well have been an alarming, and in many cases fatal, depression of trade. We have undiminished faith in the future, and in the recuperative powers of the colony,—we feel confident that, as it slowly recovers from the financial crisis through which it is even now passing, it will enter upon an era of sounder, if not such showy, prosperity. Business will probably be conducted on a sounder basis, and (1) long credit (2) trading wholly on borrowed, and starting with insufficient, capital (3) employing business capital for speculative purposes—three of the worst failings of the colonial business system—will give place to a more legitimate sort of trading.

In the political world there is little to chronicle. The dreary reign of the Atkinson Cabinet seems unlikely to terminate, and so much support has been purchased by them, that they may be regarded as very comfortably settled in office. In the meantime, the people “ pay through the nose,” and the Government, with the motto of “ Retrenchment ” always on its lips, goes on spending the money with a free hand ; and so long as people choose to submit to the yoke, so long, and no longer, will it lie on their necks. The present year, however, has witnessed one of the grandest events in the colony’s history—the full establishment of direct steam communication with Great Britain, and the arrival here of the first of our colonial Company’s new “ventures,” the steamer Tongariro. This marks a grand epoch in the history of New Zealand commerce, and is an occasion of gladness not merely to the colony at large, but especially to those few earnest and steadfast men, led by Mr James Macandrew, who so long and persistently strove to introduce direct steam communication.

The year now passing away has also seen the completion of a considerable section of our Breakwater, and the commencement of another; and at our next retrospect we shall doubtless be able to point with pride to a much improved condition of our harbor. We have, indeed, reason to congratulate ourselves that the conditions under which the mournful shipwrecks which have (alas ! too often) desolated this port, no longer exist, and that marine catastrophes such as those, are no longer possible, while everything indicates for us a splendid future. Hoping that future may not prove a distant one, we wish our readers A Harry New Year.