LIMESTONE PLANS.

Western Star, Issue 453, 15 June 1881, Page 2

LIMESTONE PLANS.

(from a correspondent.) Taking example from • the .great Takitimbs;. are getting wintry 1 incur ways; and. not too soon either, considering that the other day 1 The thermometer stood at 29 deg. ? Eah),;at 9 o’clock a.m. This was very promising ; but Southland weatheris not particularly bound by promises. fl Jt is variable as the shade by the quivering, aspen made, as the poet said of, lovely woman. However, I must,,be careful now I talk of the weather about here’. I might as well speak disparagingly of people.’s wives and .children, “There is no climate so healthy out of land,” a gentleman remarked to me the other day. “ Nor so misty (!) out of Scotland, A’ Ja observed, xby way of dry rejoinder,.. Yes, people love the weather here. They worship the storm, and don’t coil themselves up during the brumal season. The labors that b. long to "the critical periods of the year are simply succeeded by others ,:uo less arduous and constant, perhaps though of a subordinate character,. Threshing and sending of corn to market, mending of fences, priming shd trimming of hedges, cutting of chaff, ploughing, all press on the bools of one another’ with increasing momentum, and then there is the tending and fattening of slock running through

it all. I wish, indeed, they did pot fatten some of them so out of all reason. Look at some of those Leieesters! so coarsely fleshed, so hugely oleagenous, moving masses of fat, fit only to yield relishable sustenance to the grosser assimilators of human food. £ wonder, indeed, what becomes of it all;)lEf''it bo true, as Judge Ward 'said, that it is a great promoter of crime, /fe must be very trying to the ’sensibilities of a religious butcher—and probably there is such a person—to be under the necessity of dispensing such food to erring' men. great'desidel i atUffi'*tn' th 6 country at this. Reason of the year is a better state of the roads-. Asitis, they are a cnution ; made up of holes, ruts, and stretches of “ boggy syrtis, neither sen nor good dry land,” except where the Board or Council has been able to put down some gravel, which can only be done at great expense, and consequently in small measure, owing to the distance it has to be carried. But we are a patient and much enduring race, and hope that the next generation will have altogether smoother ways. Has the great contemplated Southland Farmers’ Co-operative Association been only a fragile irridescent bubble ? Have the constituents been so destitute of affinity that no incorporation could possibly be effected ? “ A pity ’tis, *tis true,” I am afraid. The farmers of Southland probably consider that they are too much scattered to .see and hear one another and become sufficiently acquainted so as to induce and maintain that closeness and firmness of union which alone would be of service. Perhaps there is also an element of covert jealousy amongst them, of the timeo Danaos et dona /erenhs kind, as regards others who might be disposed to advise and lead. It seems singular, however, that the deterrent causes should be so powerful as altogether to neutralise the positive instigations to united action. It is lather vexatious to the agriculturist if he is not able to realise the full obtainable benefit of his labors, where the return is but small at the best, and to see his exports and imports manipu-* lated and traded upon by a needless and parasitic file of intermediaries. Co-operation is not everything to hd sure; but it is something, and something that ought to be realised. The frozen meat company, it is to be hoped, •will come better speed. \j • Toil have two very lively correspondents in your train, who are effusive and almost volcanic in their patriotism and “Mister Barney jO’Murphy.” Either of them could cure, right off hand, the chronic sores of. poor Lazarus Hibernicus, if people were only reasonable and would lislen to them. “ Baith the disease and what would mend it, at anco they ken it.” For my own put, I thank ray stars that 1 am not Irish. To have so big a grievance would simply kill me. At the same time there is no knowing what the Irish might become if their masters understood theib, and they got a fair chance. There can be no doubt that thev are amenable to reason, and teachable 'and governab'e, and improveable in a very high degree if their higher qualities received proper scope and encouragement. You know how that venerable Scotchman, of great, pious, and immortal memory, St. Patrick, reduced them to reason and Christianity. But then if yell were to treat the best people that overcame of Adam’s loins like a jungle of wild cats or a forest of wolves, and at best make them feel themselves to be wretched slaves living on sufferance, what could you expect as the outcome of it? There is perhaps no other nation ©n earth (the Jews excepted) that could have been subjected to the process to which the Irish have had to submit, without sinking them into crouching, irredeemable slaves. I have a high respect for the Irish, as I have for the Celtic race generally. It must be admitted, however, that they (the Celts) are not the sort that would be in a hurry to advance if let alone. I don’t suppose that anyone is sanguine or partial enough to suppose that they would ever become masters of the inventions and improvements that are in the possession of the present age, unless these things were forced upon them, or at least put within easy reach of them. They believe in multiplying and replenishing the earth, but they would not spontaneously do much to advance it in any j othpr. way. The whole race have been -trying to live like gentlemen— H.e;, putting their hands to nothing useful—since the time that, under Brennus (ancestor perhaps, and namesake of Brian Boru), a countless mob of them broke over the walls of old Rome and filled their pockets with gold. It has been the great misfortune of the Irish ;in,the pastithat they have been closely and inseparably connected with a race greatly- than they, and bbt very‘scrupulous. Their destiny is linked., with -that of the other race, however, arid their future will be the better,, for -it. It was not. merely an ecclesiastical yoke’ that the Teutonic nations of northern Europe threw off in the sixteenth century, but the yoke df an alien domination as w'ell. It was the consciousness of a natural superiority, breaking out into a determination to brook no other masters, and which has also matured into the stronger one, to have no equals. That family into which the Irish must merge occupies the foremost place. But Saxon and Celt are of the same original -Aryan race. They are the complements of one another. The qualities wherein the one is defective, the other has in excess. Their blending will be a matter of mutual advantage. The stronger tide will preserve its current, but augmented in strength and volume by the addition of the smaller; ’’The smaller has no choice. The British Celts can. only prosper by complete amalgamation with their brother SaXona. This is their inevitable fate, and the best thing that can happen to them. All the obstacles and barriers against the incorporation will gradually disappear, under generous treatment and judicious legislation. It will take some time, but it is bound to be. Ail curative measures, to be of any value, must tend to that

result. - But it is no use talking id this way. We liave not our hand od the Archimedean lever that can move the world. Besides* indeed, there is nothing to be said but wha 4- everyone knows already. 1 was simply into making these rambling remark’ by catching, in a weak and incipient measure, a distant radiation front fervidutn ingeniwm of yoUr lively ®Or» respondents. Limestone Plains, June 8, iBBL