THE GOVERNORS' IMPRESSIONS OF OTAGO.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3177, 19 April 1871, Page 3

THE GOVERNORS' IMPRESSIONS OF OTAGO.

In his address to the Mayor and inhabitants of Oamaru, the Governor, Sir George Bowen, said : — " The official tours of a colonial Governor enable, him to report in an authoritative form to the Imperial Government .be resources and progress of the couE.ry over which he presides, and thus to draw attention at home to the capabilities of the several districts, and to the field which they afford for emigration and for the investment of capital. On the 23rd of this month, I addressed the Secretary of State (the Earl of Kimherley) in a public despatch, stating that that day was the 23rd anniversary of ihe foundation of Otago; for it was on tbe 23rd of March, 1848, tbat the little band of Scotch emigrants first landed, and pitched their tents on the site of the now flourishing city of Dunedin, then wholly uninhabited, and covered with a dense forest. 1 added that the official statistics show that, now, in 1871, the population of tbis province approaches nearly to 70,000 ; that tho annual public revenue, ordinary and territorial, actually raised therein from all sources exceeds £520,000 ; that tbe trade, including exports and imports, is more than three millions sterling in value ; that tbe number of acres already fenced in is about one million ; tbat tbe number of horses exceeds 28,000— 0 f horned cattle, 110,000— and of sheep four millions. I further, pointed out tbat tbe progress achieved in tbe other elements of materia! prosperity is equally remarkable, while the Provincial council has made a noble provision j ior -hospitals and benevolent asylums, Wskalso for primary, secondary, and in- j dti-triaJ schools and for the new university, wbich is to be opened at Dunedin in next June. •' I wish to draw general attention to these facts and figures, for tbeir significance appears to be overlooked in many quarters. They prove tbat the single province of Otago, after an existence of only twenty-three years, already far exceeds in revenue, in trade, and inu-

portance generally, tin, entire colonies k of Tasmania, of Jamaica, and other 5 West Indian Islands, of Guinea, Nova J Scolia, New Biunswick, and a large majority of the other dependencies of i the British Crown."