PUBLICATIONS BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, LONDON.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 44, 5 April 1884, Page 4

PUBLICATIONS BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, LONDON.

We have, on a former occasion, noticed the variety and excellence of the publications of this Society. No field of literature is excluded from the range of its exertions, and it has enlisted in its service many of the ripest English scholars. Science, travel, biography, religious controversy, literary and antiquarian research, high-class fiction, and instruction to the young are found equally well-represented in its extensive library ; and among the recent issues are a series of admirable little handbooks descriptive of the several British colonies, and offering intending emigrants much valuable advice. These publications are issued in compliance with a resolution of the Lambeth Conference of 1878. It is a delicate task for any writer to accept the office of guide in deciding this most momentous step, and we cannot withhold our admiration of the skilful way in which the Society's editors have discharged the duties laid upon them. They have called to their aid special writers representing all the colonies, leaving it to them to give a truthful picture of the governmental institutions, land laws, agricultural and mineral resources, wages, cost of provisions, etc., in the colony with which each is specially concerned. In this way, the best that can be said for every colony is advanced, and every handbook is complete in itself. If comparisons are to be made, the reader must make them for himself. Still, thoroughly reliable data for comparison are there, and in examining the entire series of these publications one cannot help marvelling that population still flows in preponderating crowds to Canada while the moi'e genial fields of Australasia are open. The cheap passage has no doubt a great deal to do with it, but we find men of the tenant farmer class to whom the comparatively small difference per capita between the cost of a steerage passage to America and to NewZealand is not a paramount consideration, deliberately resolving to brave the terrors of a Canadian winter rather than expend the higher amount of capital necessary to secure for them the advantages of a climate in which cattle fatten in the fields all the year round. When a friendly hand, anxious to put the best face on things, writes of Canar'a in these terms — " While the frost stays actual cultivation, which, at the outside, is only about five months in the. //car," we require nothing more to convince us of the advantages of our own situation,or to make us marvel that, with millions of acres of splendid land in Australasia unoccupied, men can be found willing to submit themselves to the hardships of a country where the severities of the climate render work in the fields impracticable for five months out of the twelve. In the description of Manitoba, that greatly overrated province, where the thermemeter falls to 40 degrees below zero, we find, under the quotations for provisions, the following : — " The retail market is well supplied with all kinds of meats of very good quality. Housekeepers would do well to purchase their winter supplies now." On turning to these quotations, it appears that the retail mai-ket rates are : Beef, 20 cents to 25 cents per lb (lOd to Is) ; mutton, 15 cents to 25 cents (7|d to Is) per lb ; mutton chop, 25 cents (Is) ; geese, 1 dollar 50 cents to 2 dollars (6s to Ss) ; salt codfish, 12^ cents (6d) per lb. The labour and wages report announces : — " As the winter approaches and the building season begins to draw to an end, labour becomes more plentiful. A great many men are seeking steady indoor work for the winter, at wages ranging from 30dols. to oOdols. per month (£6 to £10 per month). House rent for houses of 3 to 5 rooms, £4 to £6 per month ! What would New Zealanders say to these rates of pay and of provisions? And yet the emigration to Canada from Great Britain for the first nine months of 1SS2 amounted to 46,739 persons. If the colony could boast of nothing else, it might take a laudable pride in its emigration agents. This, however, is a digression, although one that was almost irresistible after a perusal of the excellent Colonists' Handbooks published by the Society. Appended to each book are some words of practical advice to emigrants, simple hints for preserving health, and prayers for daily use on the voyage. We have no doubt that these publications will be the means of disseminating much valuable knowledge about the colonies as outlets for the surplus population of the United Kingdom. The information in every case is brought up to date. Among the other notable recent issues of this Society is Sir Edmund Beckett's " Review of Hume and Huxley on Miracles ;" "Optics Without Mathematics," by Rev. Thomas Webb, M.A. ; " English Poets," a book for young readers," by John Dennis ; "Slavonic Literature," by W. R. Morfill, M.A. ; and biographical sketches of " St. Hilary of Poitiers," and "St. Martin of Tours." We have great pleasure in commending the works of the Society to all who seek sound instruction. "Christian Knowledge," as denned by its literary committees, comprises knowledge upon every topic on which an intelligent man can desire to be informed.