THE NEW YEAH AND THE OLD.

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 524, 5 January 1889, Page 3

THE NEW YEAH AND THE OLD.

Ol'Vx annual Carnival iy over. Christinas |j has departed to join the shades of other ' Ohrislmas^ef, dead and gone, and J.SRB has vanished, too, bearing with it. let us hope, the last of the' depression.' It is customary, as each new year is born, for newspaper writers to indulge in these hopeful visions oi' good times coming, 1 aud Cor newspaper artists to draw fanciful pictures of the New Year—sometimes attired as a classic female in looso llowing robes, and sometimes as a little child — banishing the monster ' Hard Times,' and pointing to the sunshine of prosperity bursting through tin: inky clouds of Depression. We have had ho much of this sort of thing in the past that some people are impatient when they read of brighter times coming and gazing upon the pictured page containing a similar moral: They say : ' Blow the sunshine of prosperity—it never shines ! And blank tho good lime. 1) coming —they never come !' And yet, gush apart, it really seems as though we were at last on the eve of more prosperous times. The nev^ ttvrift" has saved the country. New industries are springing up every day all over the colony, and thanks to ihat protective tariff which some peopie are never tired of abusing, we are learnirg to beecmo more and more selfreliant and can afford to regard the future hopefully aud cheerfully. « # * Nor is this all. The mother country Is beginning to take a renewed interest; in her longsuffering child. l Confidence in the future of New Zealand,' we read, ' is everywhere reviving.' Australian capitalists are fully imbued with the notion that we have weathered the storm, and, as a practical proof of their belief, are beginning to turn their attention to our colony as a promising field for the investment of money. The demand for land for settlement steadily increases, and this is in itself a most hopeful sign. The crowds of people who left our shores a few months ago are returning, and doubtless hundreds of others "who quitted us in the hope of ' bettering ' themselves are now sadly realising that they have made a fatal mistake, which they would gladly undo if they only possessed the means to bring them back. # * * Itißa remarkable thing, in this connection, that of the scores of well-known New Zealanders who have visited the Melbourne Exhibition, and have returned to relate their experiences to newspapers interviewers, not one but. has borne testimony to the affection manifested by such of its formsr residents as they encountered on their travels, now scattered over Australia, for the land of the Maori and the moa. In nearly all such meetings the ex-New Zealander has expressed regret at having quitted the colony, and a determination to return to it at the earliest favourable opportunity. # * * Iv spite of the croakers, and of the spiteful malicious, and lying reports circulated by the

I Financial News, a small sheet published in LonI don, whose repeated and biassed attacks on this ! colony lend colour to the supposition that they are tho productions of some unsuccessful adventurer who tried to make New Zealand his oyster, but found he had undertaken 100 tough a contract, and so retired in disgust ; in spite, I say, | of these venomous and contemptible attacks, those best able to judge have no four for the future of. this young colony. Given Protection and largely-increased immigration, and that future, is assured. Uufc the immigrants must be of the right stamp. We don't want paupers or criminals, or the refuse of the old world. We want men with sturdy arms and ' something in the bank,' and the more we can get of them the better. All things considered, we should have small cause to grumble. Let us refrain from croaking and from encouraging croakers. Let us put our shoulder to the wheel and make ihe best possible use of our opportunities when the time comes. : In other words we must make our hay when the : sun (of prosperity) shines, and the first beams of that sun ;ue already breaking through the clouds.