AS OTHERS SEE US.

Western Star, Issue 982, 16 September 1885, Page 3

AS OTHERS SEE US.

Mr Ingles, of Sydney, who recently visited this colony after twenty years' absence, writes thus in the Sydney "Evening News" of the state of the Colony: — Notwithstanding the prevailing cry of dull times, the streets were thronged with cosily-clad and well-fed crowds; the shops were full of customers ; the theatre was well patronised; and a general well-to-do air was apparent everwhere. I only found one croaker. He complained bitterly of the bad times; but when! asked him where lay the blame, he was rather hazy as to how to allocate it. "Was it the Government ? Well. ro. He believed they were doing their best. Of course, there used to be more public works going on ; but then these were finished, and no Government could always be putting up public builings." " Was it the banks?" "No; he didn't know much about banks, but he believed they were pretty liberal too." " Was it employers ?"" "Well, no. They were just as htrd up as anyone else\" " Would he We to go back to the Old Country?" "No fear," very energetically. " Times are bad, no doubt; but,. I.or' bless ye, they wasn't anything like as bad as they was at home." And so, boiled down, it all came to this —timeßwere bad. That must be true, because everybody said so. But how bad were they ? Men had fair wages, comfortable homes, were well clad, well fed, could afford tobacco and other little luxuries; and yet—and yet, they were not happy. The fact is, as it. seems to me just about this: People were too extravagant while good times lasted, Pat contracts public works cannot last for .ever.. The time must come when steady industry must apply itself to reproductive v\orks. Lands must be tilled, und ploughing is not so showy as tunnelling and b,ridge building. Grasses and must be eown, but returns are slower than from big contracts. " While the dollars roll in let us spend them. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." Such seems to me to be the general philosophy of these recurring hard times. When wages are high and work plentiful, the fat kine are slaughtered and eaten right off*, rump and stump, and not even a scrap is salted to eke out a scant? fare that must inevitably follow, when the evil days of lean kine come upon us. I believe that while there is a certain amount of depression in New Zealand at present, it is but temporary. The resources of the country are only in the birth throes of their exploitation. Well for all concerned if the lessons of thrift, self-denial, frugality, and the necessity for bard continuous effort, be learned now, from a temporary depression, than from the dry and stagnation of wide-spread national deterioration and Cbristchurch has stirring times ana a bright busy future before it yet, beyond a doubt, else the Anglo-Saxon is played out, and there is no more virtue in beef, wool, and grain. So long as grass grows and water flows, and industry merits Buccess, so long will Canterbury flourish, and the cry 6f bad times from lazy croakers will have as much effect as the idle wind that wastes, its engeries on the sands of the desert.