NEW ZEALAND'S RETURNING PROSPERITY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8644, 3 December 1889, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND'S RETURNING PROSPERITY.

HOW IT STKIKES A STRANGER. Undkr this heading (lie representative of tho Melbourne Argun contribute* the following article to tltc (Mayo Daily Times. From North to South of your islands I hear, and with ears not untaught by experience, the unmistakable hum of a quickening and returning prosperity. Tis the very same that aounded through Australia in the forties, when the discovery of the boiling down proceuts rendered pastoral work once more remunerative. 'Tin tho same which followed again on the goldfieldfi of the fifties ; which Bounded over a yet broader area when the people began to go out on the land in ti.o sixties; which comes again now, and is I hope and believe, with a fuller ami happier chord, from the proven resultß and tlieiuurvclloua promise of inigaliou, the turning of the rivers and tho "onservittg of overflow vrfttcrin the South, the bursting tip ot the louaUißfi of tho great deep* jo till JS T oitb,

I Cause andTeffect are clear enough in all those instances, and who so dull of perception as to find it even difficult to discern the tide which rises here, and to | predict its effect and trace its cause ? Who, but the croaker ? Distinct, across 1200 miles of sea, \vaa felt in Austr.lia the influence of the new tides rising in New Zealand. We saw that this Island had recognised her great mission, which was to become a purveyor of food supplies to the world. While restrictions criminally foolish were bolstering up unnatural industries in Victoria, while Xew South Wales was becoming mad with hunger for the same dead sea fruit, Xew Zealand was settling down resolutely to her own proper work, and finding in it a full reward. We looked with wonder on the vast trade which you were doing with the great world's markets — on the full laden ships, bearing homo products which to Australians seemed almost new. (One of our veterans, Thomas Sutcliffe Mort, initiated the frozen meat trade for all Australasia, but it had passed away from the Continent to the little island State.) We heard of your successes in the development of purely natural industries of all kinds, and felt that the future, if followed or planned on these natural lines, was sure as great. While through a process as the tap-tap of a hammer on coffin nails our legislators were striking blow after blow at trade and commerce and intercolonial " brotherhood in all sorts," we seemed to hear the pulses of your prosperous life, progressive because harmonious and in accord with those laws of economy which alter not. I expected nothing less than a great industrial revival in New Zealand. I find that revival, and in addition an example which I hope to set forth, and with some useful effect, before the people of Australia. It will indeed be a pleasant task to show how New Zealand with her few millions of acres feeds all her own people and sends out her hundreds of thousands of sheep and oxen, and her perfect dairy products, to the mighty consumers of the northern world ; how her manufacturers instead of endeavouring to prey on their fellow colonists and rob their neighbours with protective duties, work diligertly and cunningly to get all advantage of the local market by catering with a fuller knowledge than any outsider can possess for the local wants ; how, indeed, despite all croakers, it seems to me that you are justified in calling your friends and neighbours together for this carnival, feast and fair, whereby you announce and assert your restoration to prosperity and progress, and your desire to enter into close and friendly, yet competitive relationship with all the nations of the world.