ECHOES FROM NEW ZEALAND.

Timaru Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 1896, 27 November 1877, Page 4

ECHOES FROM NEW ZEALAND.

The following clipping from an English paper has been sent to us for publication : — (lO THE EDITORS OF THE DAILY TIMES AND MIEKOK.) . Gentlemen, — Intimately conversant as I am with the progress of events m this colony, I desire very- earnestly, and at the same time most respectfully, to apprise the people of England regarding the present state of tais remote dependency of the British Crown. I deeply feel that this is a subject of vast importance, and hence the necessity of letting m a few rays of light into ths English mind regarding this dark corner of the earth. Successful colonists, who periodically visit the old land, but somehow or other feel themselves like fish out of the water during their temporary sojourning, are not the sort of people to spread true information about the land of their adoption. Whatever they say or write about New Zealand should be received with much caution and circumspection — if not indeed with positive suspicion. Like immigration agents, the rrntli is not m them, nor m their crooked ways. Gross mismanagement and misgovernment have at last, despite repeated warnings, denunciations, and predictions, reduced this colony to a very pitiable tondition of humiliation. The electors honored and rewarded unscrupulousness and ignorance, and lo ! the results. The best of the arable land is m the hands of the capitalisb and squatter. Thousands are on the very verge of starvation. During the past month the Government raised a loan of £500,000 m Sydney, and also £1,000,000 through the Bank of New Zealand, to tide over the present complications ; for we cannot with any degree of decency, raise more loans on the English Exchange, at present, at least. We are now m debt to the amount of £32,500,000, including municipal, provincial, and colonial liabilities. We h*ve, at length, abolished the nine Provincial Governments, and have only one central administration m the village of Wellington. Our so-called progress is m the wrong direction. Our actual condition is truly alarming. Our prospects are gloomy to the people, and brilliant only to land monopolists. Will -these- land*

sharks support the cities, employ labor, and cause stagnant business to flourish ? With their splendid freeholds and sheep-runs, as large as English counties, they only aim at making their less-favored, but really better, fellow -colonists he were of wood and drawers of water, or, at least, vassal tenants. If we must be tenants at will, let us remove to the old land, where we can have markets for our produce, and educated aud gentlemanly " Lairds and M.P.'b." Colonial mushroom aristocracy, however respectable at the Antipodes, must be, to a true-born Briton, the veriest gall and wormwood. The wretched impudence and groundless pretensions of such men are very contemptible. Each of them, like the duke for a day, excites our almost inextinguishable laughter. With the truth like adamant beneath my feet, I feel no fear of promulgating such facts as these, how unpalatable soever they may appear m the eyes of immigration hirelings and their employers. Ido not write m order to please or propitiate such selfish and withal unprincipled characters. You are falsely told m England that there are no paupers m New Zealand. One of a troop of vagrant minstrels has published a book of travels. Such a respectable journal as Chainbers's periodical has asserted, on the authority of that book, that there are no poor m Dunedin. Now, Gentlemen, according to the official report of the Dunedin Benevolent Institution — a euphonious name for a poorhouse — we paid last year upwards of £5000 to keep the bodies and souls of our paupers together for a season. Dunedin, the largest town m New Zealand, has a population of about 25,000 souls. Here is a nut for Outnibers's Journal to crack at its leisure. ■ Besides the inmates of the institution, 1576 persons received out-door relief during tho past year. The list of the schedules filed with the registrar cf the Supreme Court, Dunediu, since the commencement of the present year, embraces 40 insolvents. Now there are five districts of the Supreme Court m New Zealand. At the lowest calculation, 200 persons have been declared insolvent during the first two months of this current year. Their assets, m many cases are absolutely nil. Indeed, there was a case of one insolvent who failed m a sum of £13,000, and had actually no assets whatever. The meeting of creditors resolved itself into a miniature Donnybrook. Nevertheless some officials and members of Government realise vast fortunes. By the way, the Maoris have been " more sinned against than sinning." The Native constabulary is a useless, worthless, and expensive force. They degrade, m place of elevating the Natives. Money is recklessly and foolishly frittered away upon this band of ne'ei -do- wells. There is an official army of civil servants m this colony, amounting to 6000 persons. Now the total population of the colony is just 400,000 souls. Last year there was a clear deficit of £1,000,000 m our imports. We are," emphatically, m the hard gripe of adversity, and it is therefore peculiarly cruel and inhuman on the part of our venal Parliament to induce more immigration to these shores under flagrantly false pretences. I hope every newspaper m the United Kingdom will raise a stern voico against such infamous kidnapping. It is high time to put an effectual stop to such nefarious conduct. This is a land of abortions and bantlings. We have, nominally, two universities. One body consists of a self-elected council of old and coarse-grained colonists. They have neither house nor hall, chapel nor refectory. They are simply an examining board to confer spurious degrees. The other "university" is located m Dunedin. It has a building originally designed for a Post-office, where it meets. There are six quasi-professors, at a salary of £600 a-year each. The curriculum extends over six months yearly, for three years. There are no bond fide students. About a dozen raw men from mercantile and legal firms take a morning or evening lesson to themselves. Greek is not taught, and Latin is almost ostracised. A medical school is established at a cost oi £3000 a year, and — mirabile dktu ! — there is only one student. Some of the other professors can boast of two and even four students. It is an expensive and pernicioua farce and burlesque upon the higher education. It would be far better and cheaper to send Home any students we may have to Oxford or Cambridge and educate them at the public expense, than to keep up a staff of quasi-professorial drones m Dunedin. But, Gentlemen, purse-proud and illiterate colonists affect to laugh to* scorn anything m the old land. Our papers, politicians, and immigration agents continually prate about the squalor and misery, pedantry and oppression^ of feudalism m the old land. But nothing to a well-regulated mind is so revolting as colonial beggars elevated upon horses. [ The peasantry of England — if they only | knew it — are far more happy at Homo than ever can be here. Men of education have no business here. As for the farmers of England they are immeasurably superior to the freeholders of this colony. If the English press will do its duty, more correct notions will be instilled into the public mind regarding these rowdy, coarse, and barbarous democracies of the South Pacific. Come tho three corners of the world m arms, And you shall shock them ; naught shall make you rue, If England to itself do rest but true. I have drawn out this faithful sketch of New Zealand at present for the benefit of your readers. I hope you will favor me with a corner of your journal for its insertion. The question is one of vast importance, and therefore I feel that any formal apology on my part is absolutely unnecessary. I remain, Gentlemen, faithfully yours, J. & S. Grant, First Rector of the High. School of Otago, and the Founder of the Eighthours' System of Labor. York-place, Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand, March 14. 1877.