The New Zealand Handbook (11th ed.)

First published by E. Stanford, G. Street in 1866

Digitised and made available online by the University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services.

Epub © 2013 Early New Zealand Books Collection

ISBN 978-1-927288-75-7

[TITLE PAGE]

[MAP]

NEW ZEALAND. 1866.
Engraved at Stanford's Geoographical Establishment, 6 Charing Cross, London.

THE
NEW ZEALAND HANDBOOK:
(ELEVENTH EDITION)

WITH
Practical Information and Advice
FOR ALL
ORDERS OF EMIGRANTS
FROM THE
"CAPITALIST" TO THE "WORKING MAN."

LONDON:
E. STANFORD, 6, CHARING CROSS;
G. STREET, 30, CORNHILL.
1866.

PRINTED BY

REES & COLLIN, 38, GRACECHURCH STREET, LONDON,

E. C.

[INTRODUCTION]

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

A desire to diffuse popular information about a young Country with which we are commercially connected, originally produced the "New Zealand Hand-Book." Ten large editions have already been called for; and we issue the present one in the hope that it will be found a practically useful Manual for all who may be looking to a "New Home" in that rising young Colony of our empire, destined to expand, by vigorous growth, into the future "Britain of the South."

The necessity of restricting our little Work to such a size as should bring it within reach of all orders of Emigrants, has obliged us to treat of every topic with brevity – but, we would observe, that whenever our Readers desire to obtain further information on any New Zealand Subject than may be found in our compressed pages we shall always be happy to afford it by replying to "Inquiries," addressed to us as below.

SHAW, SAVILL & CO.,
"NEW ZEALAND OFFICES,"
34, LEADENHALL STREET, LONDON, E. C.

[Page iv is blank.]

[CONTENTS]

CONTENTS AND INDEX,

CHAPTER I.

HISTORICAL SKETCH....1

CHAPTER II.

NATURAL FEATURES..... 9
Position.........9
Configuration and Size........9
Surface Character and Scenery.........10
Climate.........11
Temperature.........13
Salubrity.........15

CHAPTER III.

THE NATIVE RACE.........16
Early Migration.........17
Personal Appearance.........18
Language.........19
Dress.........19
Dwellings.........19
Food.........19
Disposition and Mental Qualities.........20
Attained Degree of Civilization.........22
Feeling of the Colonists towards the Natives - - 25
The Bishop's Testimony.........26

CHAPTER IV.

FAUNA. – FLORA. – MINERAL WEALTH.........27
Absence of Wild Animals and Reptiles.........27
Game....... 27
Birds....... 28

Fish.........28
Insects.........29
Luxuriance of Vegetation.........29
New Zealand Forests.........30
Timber Trees.........30
Beauty and Variety of Shrubs.........31
Fern and Wild Flax.........31
Introduced Trees and Plants.........32
Mineral Wealth.........32
Gold and Gold Diggings.........32
A Gold Town.........34
Iron.........34
The Taranaki Steel Sand.........35
Coal, Copper, and other Minerals.........36

CHAPTER V.

THE NINE PROVINCES, AND THE CHIEF TOWNS AND SETTLEMENTS.........37
Auckland.........37
Land Regulations.........42
Taranaki.........45
Land Regulations.........48
Hawkes Bay, and Land Regulations.........48
Wellington.........49
Land Regulations.........52
Nelson.........53
Land Regulations.........55
Marlborough.........55
Land Regulations.........56
Canterbury.........57
Land Regulations.........60
Otago.........60
New Zealand's First "Crystal Palace".........61
Land Regulations.........63
Southland.........64
Southland Land Regulations (See Note) 1 .........65
Communication between the Provinces.........65
Telegraphs and Roads.........66
Bush Travelling. Coming Railways.........67

CHAPTER VI.

POLITICAL AND PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. – EXTENT OF TRADE. – SOCIETY. – AMUSEMENTS.........68
Form of Government.........68
Administration of Justice.........70
Public Revenue. Expenditure. Debt.........70
Imports and Exports.........72
Religious Institutions.........72
New Zealand's Army.........73
The Press.........74
Society.........74
Amusements.........75

CHAPTER VII.

STATISTICAL AND GENERAL INFORMATION.........76
A Four Years' Progress, despite of War.........76
Provincial Statistics.........77
"Nationalities" of the present New Zealand Population.........78
Ratio of Marriages and Births.........78
Prices. Expenses of Living. Wages.........79
Currency. Banks. Tariff.........80
Postal Regulations. The New Panama Service.........81
Chief Officers of Government.........83
Official Directory.........85
Table of (Sea) Distances.........85

CHAPTER VIII.

HOW TO GET TO NEW ZEALAND.........86
The Voyage.........86
The New Zealand "Passenger Packets".........88
Provisioning Ships.........88
Bill of Fare.........89
Rates of Passage.........91
Voyage-Clothing.........91
Regulations of the "Passengers' Line".........92
General Outfit.........95
Taking Money.........96
Taking Servants.........97
Insurance.........97
Arrival in Now Zealand.........97

CHAPTER IX.

BY MR. HURSTHOUSE.

WHAT A MAN CAN "DO" IN NEW ZEALAND: THE CHIEF INDUSTRIAL PURSUITS OF THE COLONY, AND THE VARIOUS "OPENINGS" FOR CAPITAL AND LABOUR, ENTERPRISE AND SKILL.........99

Emigration from other Colonies to New Zealand.........101
The cause of Emigration's "fruitfulness and good results".........103
The greater value of a Man in a Young Country.........104
The question of personal "fitness" for a Colonist's Life.........105
Leaving Home and Friends.........108
Sheep Farming on the "Squatting" System.........111
Cattle Farming on the "Squatting" System.........116
"Estate-Creating" by Grazing and Farming.........118
Mining and Auriferous Industries.........140
Mercantile Pursuits. Storekeeping.........142
Manufacturing Industries.........144
Professional Pursuits.........144
Investments for Capital. Speculations.........147
Mechanical and Labouring Industries.........148
Clerks. Shopmen. Female Emigrants.........149
Those who should stay at-home.........150
Americans and Universal Suffrage.........153
Whether to go.........153
The British Lion in New Zealand.........154
New Zealand Emigration Agents.........156
Efforts to Promote Colonization.........156
Centralists and Provincialists.........157
Salmon in New Zealand.........157
Healthfulness of Climate.........158
Feathered Emigrants.........158
New Zealand's "Coming" Animal.........159
The Branston Wool.........159
Sheep and Wool-Washing by Machinery.........160

1 N.B. – The price of Country Land has been altered to £1 per acre.

CHAPTER I. HISTORICAL SKETCH.

THE NEW ZEALAND HANDBOOK.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORICAL SKETCH.

DISCOVERY, RISE AND PROGRESS. – Though New Zealand was first sighted and named by Tasman, a Dutch explorer, in the year 1642, the country was first fully discovered by our illustrious circumnavigator, Captain Cook, in 1769. Cook visited the Islands four times to recruit his exploring vessels, surveyed a large portion of the coasts, held a great deal of friendly intercourse with the Natives, and introduced the Pig, the Potato, and various useful seeds and plants.

He formed a high, and a remarkably correct opinion of the capabilities of the country for European settlement; and his report of the genial climate, fertile soil, fine harbours, and evergreen forests, so captivated the practical mind of Benjamin Franklin that the American philosopher published a proposal for the colonisation of the newly-discovered Land.

Twenty or thirty years after Cook's visit – a period during which the Islands were visited by various

European navigators, but, during which they remained steeped in barbarism to their tree-tops, shambles wherein the Natives were butchering each other in bloody tribal wars – trade and intercourse began to spring up between Sydney (New South Wales) and New Zealand. In 1814 the first Church Missionaries arrived; and, by degrees, various rude little mixed communities of sealers, sawyers, sailors, petty merchants, produce-collectors, and the like, attracted over from New South Wales, settled themselves along the coasts, trading and occasionally intermarrying with the Natives; while, year by year, New Zealand's bays and harbours became the favourite resorts and recruiting stations of the British, American, Bremen, and Colonial vessels engaged in the sperm and black whale fishery.

The reports carried home by the Whalers as to the fine harbours, and the forests of magnificent kauri spars and ship timber found in the new Islands, the glowing accounts of the fertility of the soil spread abroad by the visitors from Australia, together with the testimony of the missionaries as to the bracing salubrity of the climate, eventually revived in England that desire for the regular colonisation of the country which Cook and Franklin had excited so many years before. In 1838, an influential body of public men, including the late Lord Durham, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, various members of Parliament, the Barings, Goldsmids, and many of the leading merchants of London, formed themselves into an association, called the New Zealand Company, for the purpose of colonising the islands from the Mother Country; while, soon after, the Government, influenced partly by the desire of certain of the Native Tribes to place themselves under the protection of England, partly by the desire to prevent France from seizing on a country capable of becoming the naval mistress of the South, raised New Zealand into a British colony, and sent out its first governor in the person of Captain Hobson of the Royal Navy, who, in 1840, planted the infant

capital of the colony at Auckland, on the shores of the noble harbour of the Waitemata.

The New Zealand Company were at first most successful in the great enterprise they had planned. Between the years 1840 and '43, they acquired by friendly purchase from the natives some fine tracts of land in Cooks' Strait, and here they planted their little settlements of Wellington and Nelson, Wanganui and Taranaki – peopling them with 6,000 pioneer emigrants of a stamp better fitted to subdue the wilderness and rough-hew the foundations of an infant State than any who had left the mother country since the days of the cavalier emigrants of Delaware, or the pilgrim fathers of Massachusetts.

Unfortunately, however, dissensions soon arose between the New Zealand Company and the Colonial Office in England, while suicidal quarrels soon followed between the Company's agents and the Government officials in the Colony. Two or three of the native tribes, encouraged by this enfeebling division between the two new Powers which had appeared in the country, assumed a hostile attitude, ventured to repudiate the sale of the various districts which the Company's agents had fairly purchased, and committed numerous acts of trespass and petty violence. The Government authorities, instead of checking these first manifestations of Maori turbulence with a firm and vigorous hand, misled by the missionaries, pursued a feeble policy of over-conciliation and non-interference, until at last the disaffected natives, thus encouraged to believe themselves the stronger power, broke out into rebellion. A small military force was brought over from Australia, and a series of smart skirmishes took place between the troops (ably supported however, by bands of, "friendly natives"), and the rebels, led by Hone Heke, Kawiti, Te Rauperaha and Rhanghiata. Life and property in certain districts now became insecure: some of the Company's pioneer Settlers in Cook's Strait, driven from lands on which they had expended their little all, now abandoned the country; others

joined the troops and volunteered against the rebels; trade, immigration, enterprise, were temporarily checked; while, here and there, the little fields won from the wilderness and waving with corn were given up to the dock and the thistle.

At last, after a gloomy and inglorious period of some years of misgovernment, anarchy, and confusion, brighter days began to dawn. In 1845, an urgent petition from the long-suffering pioneer Colonists was laid before Parliament by the lamented late Charles Buller; it led to a three nights' debate, and was virtually supported by Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell, Earl Grey, and a large majority both in the Commons and the Peers. The Exeter Hall and Aborigines-protecting policy of pampering the Native to the destruction of the Colonist which had hitherto prevailed in New Zealand, was ostensibly renounced. Captain Fitzroy, who had succeeded Captain Hobson as second Governor, was superseded by Sir George Grey; additional troops were brought over; and the rebel natives, mildly chastised, far too mildly for their own good, were induced to accept a peace, and to put away their arms.

Trade and agriculture, the progress of settlement, and the arts of peace, which had drooped so low, at once began to revive. In 1846 the Scotch Settlement of Otago was planted, in 1860 the patrician Settlement of Canterbury took root; and about this time the infant Colony, having battled its way through an Iliad of disasters, began a career of quick and solid progress, which, for a whole decade, received no serious check.

In 1851 the Australian gold discoveries took place, and at once gave signal impetus to New Zealand's agricultural industry. In 1853 the new Constitution, described hereafter, came into force, and placed half 2 the government of the colony in the hands of the Colonists. In this year, too. Sir George Grey's term of

office having expired, he proceeded home, and was eventually succeeded by Lieut.-Col. Browne, K. C. B., whose administration of affairs was unfortunately disturbed by the "Native Outbreak" at Taranaki – an event leading, by degrees, to a long New Zealand War. Among the North American Indians, among the Kaffirs in our South African possessions, among all the dark-skin aboriginal races with whom we have come in contact in our world-wide work of colonisation, while there have ever been Tribes "friendly" to the White Man and to the new order of things, the peace and security, the comfort and wealth, which, in these later days of colonisation, he has sought, everywhere, to introduce, there have also been Tribes of the same people, more blinded by superstition, more wedded to their ancient barbarisms, who have looked on the White Man with hatred or envy or fear or suspicion, and this, to some extent, has been the case in New Zealand, During Governor Grey's time, it was observed that certain of the Waikato, Ngatiawa, and Taranaki tribes, who, in common with the whole native race, had been signally benefited by the European colonisation of the country, 3 were growing insolent and disaffected; and, at last, in Governor Browne's reign, these Natives, banded with others, threw off their allegiance to Victoria the Queen, and coolly proclaimed an old Waikato chief, one Te Potatau, their King. As his Majesty's court and subjects were a long way off in the "Bush," the new sovereignty did not at first much incommode the Colonists; while the Government, hoping that the Missionaries would be able to laugh the pretentious rebels out of their ungrateful folly, suffered old Te Potatau to paint himself all the colours of the rainbow, to hoist his flag, and assume the Meri sceptre of the Maori King.

Mischief soon spreads, however – the reptile's harmless egg hatches the reptile, replete with "high-concocted venom" – and this, at first, half-comic King Movement, unnoticed by the Government as the Natives thought through fear, attained, at last, such dimensions as emboldened certain of the Tribes who supported it to band together and form what was called the "Land League," under which, not content with a declaration that they themselves would sell no more wild land to the Government, 4 they sought to intimidate other Natives from doing so – sought to intimidate others from doing what they thought best to do with their own – a braggart, arbitrary, aggressive, proceeding which, sooner later, could not fail to bring such land-leagueing "Kingites" into collision with the Crown.

This, indeed, it did at once, for on Governor Browne attempting to take possession of certain land 5 in the province of Taranaki, which the Government had purchased from the native owners, the surveyors were resisted by armed bands of the Ngatiawa Tribe, and driven back. Expostulation, warning, menace, on the part of the Government Authorities, the best efforts of the friends of the Native Race, were all thrown away

on the Insensates; when, as a last resource, to prevent the laws from becoming a laughing stock, and to preserve the supremacy of the Queen, troops were sent for, the provincial militia called out, and volunteer corps formed – the Ngatiawa rebels were reinforced by allies from the "King Party" in Waikato and by lawless desperadoes from other quarters, and War broke out. After many skirmishes, and grievous destruction of Settlers' property, the rebels were at last slightly discomfited; and as Governor Browne's term of office was about to expire, and as it was thought that Governor Grey's old personal influence with the Natives might now prove useful, he resumed the governorship of New Zealand, and, after an absence of five years, again landed in the Colony in the year 1861.

The hope, however, that Governor Grey's old personal popularity among the Natives would now make itself felt; the hope that by judicious management the rebels and rioters might be induced to resume their allegiance to the Queen, to welcome the introduction of law and order into their villages, and to unite with the Colonist in the goodly work of reclaiming the wilderness and making "the desert blossom like the rose," was not destined to be fulfilled. With no shadow of a substantial grievance to complain, of, 6 yet yielding to evil counsellors and false prophets among themselves, incited by that passion for fighting ever the curse of their race, well armed, too, and by the slight chastisement received for old offences undeterred from committing new, the Taranaki Tribes and their allies would listen to no word of peace; and the Taranaki Tribes being now re-inforced by the adhesion of all the Waikato and by many of the East Coast and Taupo people, the War enlarged its original limits at New Plymouth, and gradually extended itself over some of the most beautiful of the native districts of the North Island. To describe its various incidents in a little work of this compressed and humble character

would be impossible 7 – suffice it to say that owing partly to the inefficiency of the chief commander of our forces, partly to the paralysing disputes long raging between various of the civil and military authorities, partly to the rugged character of the tangled wilderness into which the rebels had to be followed up, the Native War, which Governor Grey came to finish in 1861, lasted, with intervals of partial cessation, from that year up to 1865, while even now, here and there, its ashes may retain some heat.

Such is an outline sketch of the history of New Zealand from Cook's time to the present. Some New Zealand Macaulay writing the history of our infant Britain of the South – weighing the dreadful incubus placed on her shoulders in tenderest youth by consigning her to the statesmanship of Exeter Hall, 8 weighing her persecutions by "Red Tape," weighing her persecutions by "War" – must come to the conclusion that nothing short of some deep-seated principle of vitality, found, possibly, in her great natural gifts, saved her from utter extinction; and may well predict that a Colony which, despite long struggles for existence, and when not far out of its teens, could show 200,000 Settlers, a public revenue of a million and a half, with an export and import trade of ten millions, was the hardy Oakling, destined to grow into the goodly, deep-rooted, storm-defying, long-enduring, Oak.

2 We say half, because, virtually, under this New Constitution, the control of what in New Zealand are called "Native affairs," and our dealings with the Maori Race, were not entrusted to the Colonists – the wisdom of Parliament having thought that these matters could be managed better by a Colonial Minister sitting in Downing Street, 15,000 miles away from the scene of action, than by Colonists on the spot.

3 That the colonisation of New Zealand has been beneficial to the Native Race, and that so far from its being an "oppressed race" it is a Race which, going from one extreme to the other in our treatment of savage tribes, has been petted and pampered and coaxed and coddled by us, are facts which readers interested in "Native matters" will find strikingly brought out in a recent pamphlet by Mr. Hursthouse, and in a work called "The War in New Zealand," by the Hon. W. Fox, both procurable at Stanford's, 6, Charing Cross.

4 By the "Treaty of Waitangi," the treaty made by the British Government with the Natives when New Zealand was created a British Colony, and which has been called the Magna Charta of the Maori Race, the whole area of the North Island of New Zealand comprising nearly 30,000,000 acres was acknowledged to be the freehold property of the 80,000 Natives then left in the country; while the Government pledged itself to acquire wild land for the purposes of European Settlement only by way of friendly purchase of the Natives; and, with the recent exception of certain lands confiscated as punishment for wanton rebellion, the whole of the land acquired by the Colonists in New Zealand has been acquired in conformity with the provisions of this Treaty of Waitangi.

That the Land League, too, arose from the barbarous desire of Savages to resist the humanising spread of civilization, and not from any want or scarcity of land on their part, is evidenced by the fact that at the time of the formation of the League, the Native Tribes in the North Island possessed some 20,000,000 acres of which they had scarcely 50,000 under cultivation.

5 A few hundred acres lying in the beautiful river Waitera, which part of the Ngatiawa tribe asserted to be their own, and which they had long urged the Government to buy. The right and title of the selling Natives to dispose of this Land was duly investigated by Governor Browne and his ministerial advisors, and believed to be perfect; and though Governor Grey afterwards gave it up to the Natives opposed to the sale, on the ostensible ground of doubts as to the Sellers' title, it is held by many that the title was substantially good, and that Governor Grey's surrender of the Waitera arose chiefly from his desire to preserve peace at any price.

6 This, too, is clearly shown in the Works quoted in the note at page 6.

7 A lucid history of the war will be found in Mr. Fox's book alluded to in the note at page 5.

8 The character of the early Government of New Zealand, with its policy based on the pleasant theory that New Zealand was intended for a Missionary Preserve, where (as in Catholic South America) Priest should be all potent, and that the Maori was a pious peaceful savage to be civilized by tracts and treacle, are fully described in the second edition of Hursthouse's New Zealand.

CHAPTER II. NATURAL FEATURES.

CHAPTER II.

NATURAL FEATURES.

POSITION. – New Zealand, extending from about 34 deg. to 48 deg. south latitude, lying in the great South Pacific ocean, nearly antipodal to England, and 1200 miles south east of Australia, occupies one of the most central, independent and commanding, positions in the southern hemisphere. Speaking on this point, a popular writer uses the following words: – "Estimating the advantages of position, extent, climate, fertility, adaptation for trade – all the causes which have tended to render Britain the emporium of the world – we can observe only one other spot on the earth equally, if not more, favoured by nature, and that is New Zealand. Possessing a salubrious climate, serrated with harbours, securely insulated, of such extent and fertility as to support a population sufficiently numerous to defend her shores against any invading force, New Zealand, like Great Britain, lies contiguous to a large neighbouring continent, Australia, from which she will draw resources, and to which she bears the relation of a rich homestead with a vast extent of outfield pasturage. In these advantages she equals Britain, while she is superior to Britain in having the weather guage of an immense commercial field: Sydney and Melbourne, California and Columbia, the hundred Islands of the Pacific, the rich regions of South America, the marts of India and the Indian Archipelago, the vast accumulations of China and Japan lie, all, within easy sail of her harbour-dotted shores."

CONFIGURATION AND SIZE. – New Zealand, as shown by the accompanying map, consists of two great Islands, the North and the South, parted by Cook's Strait, a fine deep-sea channel and marine highway 150 miles in length by from 20 to 80 in breadth, and of a small Island called Stewart's Island, about the size of

Hampshire, parted from the mainland by Foveaux Strait.

The North Island is 520, and the South 580, miles in length – each, from east to west, at the broadest part, being about 200 miles in breadth. The coast line of the two measures 3000 miles; their united area has been estimated at seventy-five millions of acres, about the same as that of Great Britain and Ireland, and three-fourths of this broad territory are more or less fitted for agricultural and pastoral pursuits.

SURFACE-CHARACTER, SCENERY, &c. – New Zealand, while exhibiting some noble open plains and numerous undulating champaign districts, may perhaps be described, generally, as a wooded-highland country, clothed with luxuriant, evergreen, vegetation. Its origin was volcanic, and no country presents a greater variety of interesting features to the geologist. Many of the smaller elevations of the North Island are old extinct craters; Tongariro, 6000 ft. high, still occasionally emits smoke and cinders; while, in what are called the Lake Districts of the North Island, Tufas and Solfataras, boiling springs and bubbling mud-pools, further attest the existence of igneous action. Shocks of earthquake, too, are still occasionally felt along the shores of Cook's Strait, at Wellington, and elsewhere; but they are not shocks of a very serious character, and even the good people of Wellington seem to regard the possibility of their occurrence with as much equanimity as we might regard the prospect of wet harvest or wintry spring.

Numerous wooded ranges of moderate elevation, and two snow-capped giants, Ruapahu and Mount Egmont, are found in the North Island; while a chain of rugged forest ranges, displaying that New Zealand monarch of mountains. Mount Cook, 14,000 feet high, extends along the coast of the South Island almost from Cape Farewell to Dusky Bay.

The North Island contains only two or three moderately extensive plains; but abounds in large luxuriant

valleys, and in sheltered dells and dales. The South Island, on its western side, consists chiefly of mountain forest ranges and of the wildest Alpine regions; but on the east, it displays some magnificent plains and open districts admirably adapted for the plough and the golden fleece.

With a coast line of more than 3000 miles, New Zealand exhibits a multitude of bays, creeks, coves, estuaries, and anchorages, and possesses some of the finest naval and commercial harbours in the world – though these latter are found rather in isolated groups than in equally dispersed order along her shores.

One of the most striking natural features of the colony, and one which gives it a great superiority as a pastoral and agricultural country over our South African and Australian Possessions, is the abundance of water. The Thames, Waikato, Kaipara, Hokianga, Wanganui, Manawatu, Pelorus, Clutha, and a few others, may be called the only rivers navigable 50 miles up for anything larger than a boat; but there are some fine lakes, such as Taupo, 30 miles long by 20 broad, and Rotorua, in the North Island, together with Wanako, Hawea, Wakatip, and Te Anau near the gold districts in Otago – while, from north to south, the country is studded with rivers, rivulets, brooks, and bums, mostly of the clearest, softest, water, running over pebbly beds, and bearing a close resemblance to many of our trout and salmon streams, such as the Dove, Tamar, Deveron, Tweed, Don, and Dee.

CLIMATE. – In weighing the natural advantages of any new country in which we hope to improve our fortunes and plant a home, "goodness of climate" should be made one of our very first requirements, for men live by air as much as by bread. "In old countries like England" – says Mr. Hursthouse in his work on New Zealand – "art may certainly lessen our dependence on climate. There, if we have to dine with a friend three counties off, be it snow, hail, sleet, rain, we can step into a flying parlour and be borne to the

feast without a feather ruffled – there, if, instead of flowers, Spring bring us bitter east blasts, luxurious wealth may pile up the fire and hibernate in warm snuggeries through a vernal winter, while for coughs, colds, bronchitis, and rheumatics, M. D. is ever round the corner. But in new emigration countries where we lead a wholesome out-door life and face the weather in the fields; where, instead of brick and slate, it may be weather-board and shingle; where we have to rough it more, and where the doctor is not always at hand in the next street, climate may almost be called our elemental lord and master – whence it follows that in making choice of any Emigration Field 'goodness of climate' should be insisted on as one of our very first requirements; for on this will depend our health and strength, and on the continued enjoyment of health and strength will mainly depend our happiness and success."

Now, in this great desideratum. New Zealand stands remarkably high. Indeed, in general suitability to the Anglo-Saxon constitution, in sanatory and recruiting properties for the invalid, and in marked fitness for agricultural and pastoral pursuits, the climate of New Zealand deservedly ranks as one of the finest in the world. In general terms, it might almost be described as the climate of England with about half the cold of the English winter, for while the summer is only rather warmer than a warm English summer, the winter is seldom colder than a cold English March, or sharp cold October. New Zealand, however, being nearly the antipodes of this country, north, with her is the warmest quarter, and the seasons are reversed – July being her coldest month – January her hottest. All native trees and plants, too, being evergreens, there being no autumnal fall of the leaf, the country appearing almost equally verdant at all periods of the year, the change of seasons is far less marked than in England, and is, indeed, so gradual as to be scarcely appreciable. September, October, and November are, however, called spring; December, January, and

February, summer; March, April, and May, autumn; June, July, and August, winter.

COMPARATIVE CLIMATIC TABLE.

Mean
Annual
Temperature.

Mean
Temperature
of
Coldest
Month.

Mean
Temperature

of Hottest
Month.

Annual
Fall of
Rain in
Inches.

Number
of Dry
Days
in the
Year.

London

50

37

63

30 1

180

Madeira

64

59

71

29

290

New Zealand,
(North Island)

57

48

66

45

240

New Zealand,
(South Island)

52

43

62

35

260

Montpelier

57

42

75

30

285

Queensland

68

60

76

43

260

1   Average fall in England.

It will be seen by this table that, taking the mean of the two Islands, New Zealand's climate, as a whole, is warmer than England's by about five degrees; and that while her hottest month is only one degree hotter than our hottest English month, her coldest month is nearly nine degrees less cold than our coldest month. The annual fall of rain is about one-fourth greater than in the British Isles; but at the same time the number of fine dry days in the year is upwards of one-third greater, showing that rains, though heavier, are less frequent than with us. Nevertheless, there is no dry or rainy season in New Zealand, such as we find in some tropical and semi-tropical countries: most rain falls in winter, but there is no month without its copious showers, so that climatic scourges like the Droughts which now and then parch up South Africa and Australia are, happily, unknown.

The climate is a more windy one than that of England: stiff gales are experienced in all seasons, while even in the height of summer cool sea breezes generally prevail. With less wind, the climate, for half the the year,

would be a more luxurious and pleasant one – but the constant breeze, in drying up superfluous moisture, and in blowing oceanward malaria, miasma and seeds of disease, is undoubtedly one cause of New Zealand's remarkable salubrity.

Fogs are seldom seen, while thunder storms are even less frequent and severe than in the British Isles. There is but little twilight: in summer, it is dark about an hour sooner than in England, in winter, about an hour later; and in all seasons the nights are from 10 to 12 degrees colder than the days.

Slight frosts, producing half-inch ice, occur in the North Island; but snow, save on mountain peaks, is rarely seen there. In the South Island snow occasionally lies a few days on the plains; but the mildness even of the winters of the South Island is shown by the delicate little Parroquet never leaving the country, and by the Tree Fuschia and the Tree Fern flourishing there throughout the year.

Testing New Zealand by her vegetable productions, too, we find she is only a warmer England. Speaking generally, it may be said that every grain, grass, fruit, flower, shrub, and vegetable of the British Isles grows as vigorously and attains as great a degree of perfection in New Zealand as it does here. In many districts, the fig, apricot, nectarine, and peach flourish as standard trees, the melon is almost everywhere abundant, while in the warmer valleys of the North Island the horticulturist may rear the orange, citron, lemon, pomegranate, and loquat. The taro, also, a native of the Sandwich Islands, the kumera (a sweet potato) and maize, are grown by the northern natives; but, under common field cultivation, Maize, a plant affording one of the nicest tests of heat of climate, will not generally ripen in New Zealand, and seldom appears there, a farmer's common crop, as it does in Australia, America, and other countries where summer and autumnal heats are more steady, permanent, and intense. The vine, too, succeeds only a little better in the open, than it does in England, and New Zealand will have no glad

vineyard workers paying honours to that jovial god,

"Who first from out the purple grape.
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine."

As to shrubs and flowers, it must suffice to say that, in the North, hedges, even, may be formed of geranium and myrtle; and that arum, balsam, heliotrope, and various delicate plants of our English conservatories, flourish in the open air.

Great, however, as may be the merits of the New Zealand climate in respect to pleasantness, and to fitness for agricultural and pastoral pursuits, its salubrity is perhaps its most remarkable feature. In Dr, Thompson's 9 luminous and scientific work on New Zealand he treats fully of the climate in relation to its sanatory properties, and among other remarkable proofs of its healthfulness gives as the following pregnant tables, prefacing them with these remarks: – "Conclusions drawn from the sickness and mortality among Troops are admitted to be the best standard for measuring salubrity of climate, because soldiers in every British regiment of the line are about the same age, feed on the same quantity and quality of food, are exposed to the same injurious agents, and preform nearly the same amount of labour wherever they are stationed."

NUMBER of SOLDIERS in 1000 who Annually Die from Different Diseases at various Military Stations: – »

New Zealand

8

Australia

11

Great Britain

14

Cape of Good Hope.

15

Malta

18

Canada

20

NUMBER of SOLDIERS in 1000 Annually attacked, and the Number who Annually die from CONSUMPTION at various Military Stations: –

Attacked.

Deaths

New Zealand

60

2

Cape

98

3

Australia

133

5

Malta

120

6

Canada

148

6

Great Britain

148

8

The Registrar's returns for England and Wales show that the annual number of "births" are 33 per 1000, of "deaths" 22; whereas in New Zealand, while the births, owing to the comparative scarcity of the gentler sex, stand at 32, the deaths are as low as 10, per 1000. Of course, the per centage of young people being much greater in New Zealand, the death-rate, quite independently of Climate, would be low there. But, allowing amply for this, and at the same time bearing in mind that numbers of those who now form a portion of the colonist population of New Zealand were the sickly or delicate, emigrating thither partly for the very purpose of bracing up constitutions, these figures, taken in conjunction with Dr. Thompson's, will, we think, be found well worthy the attention of all who may be contemplating a radical change of habitation or pursuits partly in the hope of securing a permanent improvement of health for families or for themselves.

9 Senior Surgeon of the 58th Regiment, many years stationed in New Zealand.

CHAPTER III. THE NATIVE RACE

CHAPTER III.

THE NATIVE RACE.

ORIGIN AND NUMBERS. – The New Zealanders, or "Maories" as they call themselves, are a remnant of people of mongrel Malay origin, bands of whom, incited thereto by the feuds and tribal wars ever raging among savage races, abandoned Hawaii, one of the Sandwich Islands, 10 about 400 years ago, and in questing about the seas in search of some new Land, had the good fortune to find New Zealand – slumbering

in her summer seas, and a-glow with beauty and fertility; but revealing, then, no footprint or trace of Man.

Tradition relates that the Immigrants, numbering about 1000, in a dozen large canoes, brought little or nothing with them into the new world they had lighted on save the dog and the rat, an edible root, the gourd, and a berry or two – but plains of farinaceous fern, woods alive with birds, lakes teeming with eels, bays choked with fish, offered them a bounteous larder, and they found that in lighting on New Zealand they had made a most lucky land-fall. They took root in the country, multiplied, and spread; and, judging by existing traces of their old villages and fortifications, it seems not improbable that at the period, whenever it was, when their numbers were the greatest they may have amounted to upwards of 200,000 souls. Those ferocious tribal wars, however, which had originally driven them from Hawaii, remained their curse in New Zealand; and, these, together with other causes of depopulation, so reduced them that when they were first visited and described by Cook, about a hundred years ago, their numbers certainly did not exceed 150,000. The same self-inflicted evils operating on them for the period of seventy years which elapsed between Cook's time and the commencement of our colonization of the country, in 1840, further reduced their numbers to 80,000; and though, after this date, tribal wars virtually ceased in New Zealand, yet such have been the continued depopulating effects of the Natives' piggish mode of life, of the semi-promiscuous intercourse of the sexes before marriage, and of other barbarous customs to which they cling, that they have now reduced themselves to a mere handful of people not numbering even. 50,000 11 – divided, though, into no fewer than eighteen tribes, and all, save a few hundreds, located in the North Island. It is believed

they are still decreasing – at the annual rate, too, of four or five per cent.; and there is grave reason to fear that, in another decade or so, the Maori race will not be more an element of population in New Zealand, not more a "power" in the State, than the Gipsy race is found to be in our own Isles, while, that half a century hence, the New Zealand Native, like the New Zealand Moa, 12 may even be extinct.

PERSONAL APPEARANCE. – Tattooing is now no longer the fashion, and the fairest and best looking of the young people are not much unlike our Gipsies – often, though, presenting a little of the Tartar, and, here and there, a little of the Jewish type. The old and middle aged women, bent and broken by toil, 13 become terribly weird and witch-like in appearance; but some of the girls are beautiful brunettes, and the alliances formerly existing between these and the early Settlers have produced four or five hundred specimens of an Anglo-Maori race, which, in regard, at least, to physical gifts, have made some lament that in these present more "fastidious" days of colonization New Zealand is no longer that primeval garden wherein men, sick of cities, could realize the following Tennysonian dream: –

"There, methinks, would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind.
In the steam ship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind;
There, the passions cramped no longer shall have scope and breathing space –
I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race:
Iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, they shall dive and they shall run,
Catch the wild goat by the hair, hurl their lances in the sun.
Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks –
Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books."

LANGUAGE. – Many of them understand a little English, and a few can speak a broken jargon of it; but their own rude language, or rather a serviceable smattering of it, is easily acquired, and all intercourse with them is carried on in their own tongue. One or two proverb specimens of it may interest some of our readers: – "He kuku ki te kainga, he kaka ki te haere." A Muscle at home, a Parrot abroad – meaning that a man of no mark at-home often makes himself out to be a very big fellow abroad." He pai tangata ekore e reia; he kino Wahine ka reia." Who looks at a handsome man! but let a woman be ever so ugly men will still run off with her – a proverb strongly corroborative of that scarcity of Eve's daughters named in the note at page 17.

DRESS. – Our English blanket, often of fine quality, and gracefully worn in the old Roman Toga fashion, is still their favourite and generally their sole apparel; but, despite the sufferings of smartness, the Maori will occasionally array himself in fine coat, stiff collar and tight boots, and stand forth, the "howling swell." The chief dress of the women is the coloured cotton "roundabout," a short, bed-gown sort of garment – but on high days and holidays, here and there, the Maori Belle may be seen glistening in silk or satin, with crinoline and parasol.

DWELLINGS. – They still dwell in wretched little rush-hut, pig-stye villages, dotted over the country, perched, for the most part, on hill-tops, "odoriferous in tide gale," and often fortified, a la Totleben, by earth-works, rifle-pits and double lines of fence and ditch; and the difficulty of getting them to live in any more sanatory, model-village, fashion will be one of the chief obstacles the Colonists will have to encounter in their humane efforts to preserve the race.

FOOD. – The New Zealanders are not a Hunting People, and, that, for the very sufficient reason that there is nothing in the Islands to hunt. Three-fourths

of their food is derived from potatoes, maize, wheat, kumeras, taro, melons, and fruit, raised by rude cultivation in patches of garden-ground, and from pigs, cows, and poultry, feeding in and around their villages. The remaining portion of their Larder is supplied mainly by fish – their largest villages being on the coast and their inland Settlements all within easy access of some arm of the sea, or lake, or teeming eel weir – and to their plenteous garden produce, their pigs, fowls, and fish, they now and then add, by way of dessert, a bit of stranded whale, a pigeon or wild duck, a luscious grub or two, a truffle, or a handful of Hinau berries – picked up, for the most part, within gun-shot of their dwelling-places. The little clearings which yield them their substantial food and surplus sufficient to bring them sugar, blankets, and tobacco, are ever found on the richest soil; and such are the goodly crops they yield that the Maori, the most active of the active in War, but rather the lazy, sun-basking Maori in Peace, finds that a very small amount of field labour, expended on a very small field, will fill the belly and the pipe, and give him plenty and to spare. Hence it is, that his farming and gardening operations are conducted on so singularly small a scale that it has been estimated that the 50,000 Natives of the North Island, where even now they must possess some twenty millions of acres of Land, have not much more than fifty thousand acres of such vast domain, the four hundredth part of it, under actual cultivation.

DISPOSITION AND MENTAL QUALITIES. – Among the various dark-skin Tribes of Men – Australian-Aborigines, American-Aborigines, Negroes, Zulus, Kafirs, Hindoos, Hottentots, – with whom the Anglo-Saxon has wrestled in his world-wide work of Colonization, two races stand out prominent from the rest – the Red Indian and the Maori. In rude nobility of savage character, in haughty, innate, contempt of the glitter of civilization, the Indian, "Aristocrat of Savages," stands far the first – in subtlety, in pliancy, in the

shrewdness of the shop, the Maori is the master, while in warlike prowess, in superb, heathenish, contempt of death, both races are alike.

The following abbreviated passage from an able and impartial Work conveys a fair idea of the Maori character: –

"The New Zealanders have the minds of children and the passions of men. They respect ancient laws and customs, but are ready to embrace new opinions given out by men in authority. So constituted are their minds that it is impossible to decide how certain circumstances will affect them. Futurity is seldom looked into, although, like all mankind, they long for what is unknown, and remember with regret what is lost. Without genius for discovery, and incapable of generalising, they are nevertheless apt at acquiring the rudiments of learning. They are confident in accomplishing whatever they undertake. Fondness for novelty is a passion, but it is almost impossible to excite wonder. In imitation they are strong, and from mimicry derive pleasure. Vanity, arrogance, and independence are universal, but they are more vain than proud. In all their actions they are alive to their own interest, and in seeking this are not overburdened with conscientiousness. Solomon said, 'it is the glory of a man to pass by an offence,' but the New Zealanders could not brook in word or deed an insult when witnessed by others. Wounded vanity caused much strife, and cruelty and cannibalism were occasionally produced by a love of notoriety. They are deficient in that sort of moral courage which causes men to execute the commands of reason and conscience. They value life, but die with indifference when death is inevitable. They have little benevolence towards others: long absent friends are greeted with a profusion of tears; but, as with children, this grief is destitute of impression.

"Gratitude is unknown, and no word expressive of this feeling is found in their language. Theft is rare among them. Revenge is their strongest passion, and this feeling is kept alive for generations. They are jealous of each other, and love to excite terror. When excited they derive pleasure from cruelty and bloodshed. Tried by the European standard, their conversations are sensual and their ideas unclean. Secrets are kept with difficulty. Of their deeds they are boastful. They accost their equals without levity, and their superiors without awe, and it is reckoned disgraceful to give way to anger. Cheerfulness, more than laughter, predominates. They are liberal in giving presents, but presents are merely modes of trade, as returns are always expected. They possess a great flow of words, and are fond of eloquence and oratory. They are dirty and indolent. They are strong against the weak, but weak against the strong. When mastered,

either physically or mentally, they become as manageable as children; but this power must be exerted in the right way, for, like their own supple-jack they are more easily overcome by gentle and skilful management than by ill-directed force. This character of the New Zealanders is less favourable than that usually given. It is, however, drawn up from the history of the people, and from personal observation among them in their days of happiness and sorrow, and in their hours of sickness and death." – DR. THOMSON'S "Story of New Zealand. "

ATTAINED DEGREE OF CIVILIZATION. – The abandonment of cannibalism by the Maori race, their reputed conversion to Christianity, the tales told of their accounts at the Bank, their reading and writing, their skill in war, have gained them credit in this country for the attainment of a far higher degree of civilization than they have yet cared to reach. Cuvier tells us that it takes forty generations to turn the wild duck into the tame. We trust that the Maori will be preserved long enough for the experiment, and that his metamorphose will be effected in far less time. Little progress, however, has, as yet, been made with him. It was said by the great Napoleon that if you "scratch the Russian you find the Tartar," and with equal justice might it be said, if you "scratch the Maori you find the Savage." His abandonment of cannibalism, is indeed, a fact, and may well be quoted as a great first step in his rise from utter barbarism; but his conversion to Christianity has been only nominal. The new religion was a novelty, and reaching him, as in early days it often did, in unavoidable connection with the creature comforts of blankets and tobacco, it became, and long remained, the "fashion" with him. All honour is due to the Missionary Fathers who sacrificed the solace of friends and the sweets of home to carry the Gospel into the wildernesses of the antipodes; and, in aiding to humanize the Maori and to prepare him for civilization, the missionary, in New Zealand, has played no fruitless part. Yet, if by "conversion to Christianity" be meant, not the Maori's-"bell-pulling" and "Sabbath-keeping," but the impregnation of his mind with those great Bible truths which influence

actions, and lead men to shun evil and do good, then, it must be seen by all who have lived among the natives, and who have not been blinded by bigotry or professional zeal, that the goodly harvest of "Maori conversion to true Christianity," is a harvest not yet reaped in New Zealand. 14 As to Bank accounts, here and there an advanced chief may have lodged money in a Bank; but this would no more prove the civilization of the natives, taken as a race, than the existence of a Rothschild would be a proof of the individual wealth and civilization of the thirty millions of people of the British Isles. With regard to the arts of reading and writing, they hit the Maori taste; but the ability to read and write is only that slight tincture of letters which the most stolid of savages could not fail to have acquired had they enjoyed the advantages offered by the New Zealanders' Mission Schools; while as to that "Art of War" in which the Maori takes so high a degree, it is not an art he has acquired through civilization, but one to which he seems to have been, in the manner, born, and one which, as we know, he practised with infinite skill and gusto on his brother Maori long before he enjoyed the opportunity of practising it on us.

The real progress the New Zealanders have made in civilization is best tested by the progress they have made in the simple Industrial Arts, and by the state of their Domestic Life. For a quarter of a century, they have had around them the farmer, the carpenter, the smith. In this period, for portions of their vast domains of unused wild land, for their pigs, gum, potatoes, and native produce raised chiefly by their women, they have received from the Colonists many hundreds of thousands of pounds. They have had ample pecuniary

means, if such had been needed, of learning all the surrounding Arts of Civilization; and both Government and Colonists would eagerly have encouraged any desire on their part to acquire such humanising knowledge. But, despite these advantages, they have chosen to learn so little, that of the 50,000 natives still left (excepting the few who have been attached to colonist and missionary families) it may be said that there are not probably more than a hundred who could even plough a furrow, shoe a horse, or make a door. The truth is, they have preferred to bask in the sun, smoke the perpetual pipe, see their women work the gardens, and reserve their own energies for War. As to their "domestic habits," promiscuous intercourse before marriage, leading to widespread female infertility, though more concealed, is perhaps as common as ever; and, save that they have exchanged the mat for the blanket, and have a more varied and abundant diet, their life is substantially the same savage, pah-dwelling, piggish life that it was a hundred years ago. In short, in regard to any actual advances the Maori tribes have made in civilization, there is every reason to believe that if the colony were abandoned by us to-morrow, they would relapse into the barbarism of Cook's days, and in twenty years utterly exterminate themselves by renewals of internecine war.

The mere abstract question as to how far the Maori has advanced in civilization is not, perhaps, one which would interest the majority of our readers; and if it were a question confined only to missionary circles, to aborigines protection societies, and to the habitues of Exeter Hall, we should not care to discuss it here. But, partly through the mistakes and misrepresentations of these bodies, an idea has got abroad that the New Zealand Native of 1866 is no longer the turbulent savage, but the poor oppressed civilized man, whose chief fault and failing is his dark skin. This monstrous notion has spread even to Westminster and Downing Street, and, in leading the Colonial Office to believe that our Maori patient in New Zealand is in a far more

advanced and healthful state than he really is, has laid to the prescription of mild remedies and half measures for him, utterly unfitted for his malady, and which may even have aggravated his case.

In recognition of such good qualities as the Maori does possess, in desire to benefit his race, we yield to no one; and, in common with nine-tenths of the colonists, we indulge in the pleasing, perhaps in the "Quixotic," hope, that the remnant of his race may be preserved to grow eventually into useful citizens of our young Britain of the South – but nothing can be more fatal to the interests of the Maori in these days than to smear him over with a "lacquer" of civilization and then to call him civilized – nothing more likely to produce causes leading to his extinction than to treat him as any other than as that improved Savage, that biped, half "Ferae Nature," which, in realities, he, still, is.

FEELING OF THE COLONISTS TOWARDS THE NATIVES. – Among the many gross libels showered on the New Zealand Colonists by Secretaries of Aborigines Protection Societies, bigoted Missionaries, dilletante Humanitarians, professional Philanthropists, and the like, who are ever inventing excuses for their pet protege, the Maori, and ever palliating his misdeeds, one has been this – "that the Colonists in their daily intercourse with the Native have treated him as the mere black fellow, like the weeds of the country, fit only for extirpation." Nothing more opposite to the truth than this has ever been foisted on the public. It is notorious to all who are familiar with the stamp of emigrants who leave our shores for America and Australia that the body of people who in the last twenty-five years have settled in New Zealand has been a body of people drawn, to an unprecedented extent, from our upper and middle and educated classes: a body of people eminently qualified to take large and just and generous views of that interesting Native Race among whom they had cast their lot. Now, here and there, among this body of Colonists will be

found some "Vieux Moustache," old follower of Havelock or Clive, who believes that the Maori, like every other black skin among the whites, would relish a safe Cawnpore – but the sentiments with which nine-tenths of the New Zealand Colonists have regarded the New Zealand Natives have been these: – that the personal character of the Maori was, substantially, that which has been depicted by Dr. Thomson; but that, nevertheless, the Maori was a splendid savage whom it was desirable to succour and civilize – that his military merits were great, and that he would make a noble addition to that self-reliant "defensive force" which all British Colonies should keep up – that his presence in the country imparted a warmth, a variety, a piquancy, a "picturesqueness," to its fields and forests far superior to that shed by red deer or any noble game – that there was land enough in New Zealand to sustain millions of either race in easy plenty – and that the most practically humane and curative school for the Maori would be that which he would find in his own fields and gardens, in his model cottage, in his carpenter's shop. That these views of the Maori, these wishes for his good, are not so strong as they once were is undoubtedly true. The bloody Mumbo-Jumbo, "Hau Hau," superstition to which some of the tribes have abandoned themselves has led many a Colonist to entertain a profound contempt for the intellect of a people who could so brutalize themselves, and in a moment renounce the missionary teachings of fifty years. Nevertheless, even now, the great bulk of the Colonists would gladly let bygones be bygones, would rejoice should it prove possible to save and civilize the remnant of the Maori Race, and would ever desire to make it their boast to merit the following pulpit eulogium passed on them by good Bishop Selwyn – that Polynesian St. Paul. "In defence of the Colonists of New Zealand, of whom I am one, I say most distinctly and solemnly, that I have never known, since the Colony began, a single act of wilful injustice or oppression committed by any one in authority against a New Zealander." 15

10 The island from which the natives originally emigrated they call "Hawaiki," and Dr. Thompson inclines to think that this was not the present Hawaii of the Sandwich group, but the present Savii of the Navigator's group, lying 2,000 miles nearer New Zealand. Further, he relates that New Zealand was originally discovered by a fugitive chief from "Hawaiki," and that it was his report of the goodness of the country which led the band of emigrants to set out, afterwards, in search of it.

11 The small proportion of women and children in this remnant of population is very remarkable, and affords a further indication of the saddening probability of the speedy disappearance of the Maori. In England, to 100 men there are more than 100 women and 140 children – among the New Zealand natives, to 100 men there are not more than 70 women, and 50 children.

12 A bird, something of the ostrich make and shape, fit for Brobdignag, but formerly existing in New Zealand, standing eight and ten feet high, some amazing skeletons of which may now be gazed on at the British Museum.

13 The unfortunate women do all their own rude domestic work, and a large portion of the rough, out-door, labour properly belonging to the lazy men.

14 Here and there, as for instance in the case of the "Wanganui Martyrs," the missionaries have been fortunate enough to make a true convert – but the conversion of a Jew is not the conversion of the Jews. Indeed, if beyond the evidence forced, on everyone who has lived among the natives, with his eyes open, any proof were needed to show how little Christianity has affected them, it might be found in the horrible "Hau Hau" Superstition, where we see a large body of natives, who had been bell-pullers and Sabbath-keepers for years, instantly, at the command of a rascal prophet, renouncing Christianity and sealing their new faith by the brutal murder of one of their oldest missionaries.

15 From a Sermon preached at Nelson in 1862.

CHAPTER IV. FAUNA. – FLORA. – MINERAL WEALTH

CHAPTER IV. ,

FAUNA. – FLORA. – MINERAL WEALTH.

FAUNA. – It is a singular fact that a large country like New Zealand abounding in food and covert for game, and having a climate singularly favourable to the existence of a varied and extensive Fauna, should not possess a single indigenous wild animal. Indeed, with the exception of some harmless lizards, the Kiore, a small and now scarce rat, is the only four-footed native creature found in either of the great Islands.

To make amends for this deficiency, however, New Zealand is equally destitute of reptiles, and would seem, like Ireland, to enjoy St. Patrick's blessing. There is not a single snake of any description; and, with the exception of two rather rare spiders, not even an insect so noxious as the common English wasp. Rats, first brought in by the ships, have, happily, taken to the forest rather than to the barn, and are now multitudinous in some of the wild regions of the interior.

The pig, originally introduced by Cook, straying from the native villages and breeding in the forests, has become a wild animal in many of the remote districts; and the cat, though to a much smaller extent, and even a few cattle, electing to become Ferae Naturae, have followed the loose example of the pig.

Pheasant, partridge, quail, a few red and fallow deer, and some other useful and ornamental creatures, have been introduced by Spirited Colonists, and by the young Acclimatisation Societies. The pheasants have thriven famously in Auckland; 16 the red deer have bred in Nelson, the fallow have been seen in the Wairarapa and elsewhere; and looking at the genial climate, at the profusion of water, of evergreen cover, and of wild forest food, and at the absence of

game-destroying vermin and beasts of prey, we have little doubt that New Zealand, in a few years, will afford good sport in covert and stubble, and an occasional shot for the deer-stalker on the hills.

BIRDS. – Destitute of indigenous animals. New Zealand, is not rich in variety and species of birds, for of the latter there are but 83, while in England there are 273. Among our New Zealand feathered friends there are two varieties of the Hawk, one of the Owl, five of the Plover, five of the Parrot, three of the Rail; a Wood-hen, a magnificent Pigeon, a Bittern, and a noble Crane. There is the Kiwi, also, less a bird than a queer biped with hairy feathers and no tail, two migratory discordant Cuckoos, five varieties of the Wild Duck, and a few tiny Quail. The famous Bell-bird there is, too, rousing the forest at dawn with the chimed tinkling of fairy bells, and the ubiquitous Tui, a most merry member of the greenwood throng, toothsome in stew and great in song. All the finest varieties of our Poultry are now abundant in the Colony. Some of our smaller birds, too, have been carried over; and the rook, sparrow, finch, lark, blackbird, and thrush might now be freely introduced with great advantage to gardens and farms, and to the lovers of English sights and sounds.

FISH. – The Sperm and Black Whale, with the Shark are common in the New Zealand seas; and the Seal was formerly very abundant on the southwestern coasts. The streams, however, are poor in fish. Certainly, fine eels are found in every brook; but with this exception, and that of the Upokororo, a sort of grayling, and some excellent whitebait, the thousand and one beautiful streams of New Zealand scarcely afford a fish worth catching: a reproach, however, which we think the Acclimatisation Societies will soon wipe away by introducing the Salmon, 17 and the tidal Murray Cod.

Sea fish are abundant, and the Hapuka, and three or

four other varieties, would be counted fine even in Billingsgate. Lobsters are not found, and crabs and shrimps are small and worthless; but the finest of cray-fish, cockles, and mussels, abound; while the rock oysters of certain localities are equal to the best of our own. Many varieties of beautiful shells are found on the coasts, including the Trochus Cookii, the Trochus Imperialis, the Paper Nautilus, and the pearly Mutton Shell.

INSECTS. – The insects, generally, are not much unlike those of England, and are about as numerous. Caterpillars, however, are far more abundant, and on new lands are often the farmer's pest. Sand-flies and mosquitoes are found in the bush and about new clearings, but soon disappear before cultivation. Ants are rarely seen, and there are no hornets, wasps, or earwigs. The circada (a noisy summer chirper), the weta, a most ugly and suspicious-looking creature, but quite harmless, and the Koeke, a flying grasshopper, two inches long, are the three most foreign-looking members of the entomology. The common garden bee, introduced with signal success, now frequently swarms in the woods, and here and there stores a forest tree with the finest honey.

FLORA. – New Zealand is the land of greenwood. Vegetation runs riot: sea-spray crags, shore-margins, plains, valleys, mountain-steeps, are alike clothed with perpetual verdure; and the teeming growth, and vigorous freshness of the wild shrubberies and forests have been the admiration of every visitor since the days of Cook. Of plants, from humble shrub and creeping daisy, up to that king of trees, the noble kauri, 2000 species have been collected, and the late Sir William Hooker anticipated that almost as many more would ultimately be found. It is worthy of remark, too, that nature, seeming expressly to have fitted the islands for colonisation by endowing them with a mild and bracing climate, and with an Animal Kingdom devoid of noxious beast or creature, has been equally

bountiful in the Vegetable Kingdom – for as in the one there is no venomous reptile, so in the other there is no poisonous plant. 18

In England there are scarcely 40 varieties of indigenous trees – in Now Zealand, including shrubs over twenty feet high, there are upwards of a 100; and of these probably half are trees attaining a size large enough to entitle them to rank as forest trees.

Speaking of New Zealand forests, Mr. Hursthouse says – "Their mode of growth, their general appearance, is utterly different from anything in old world woodlands. Thousands of huge columnar stems 50, 100, 150 feet high, struggling up through densest thickets, have their heads so loaded with parasites that their foliage is almost lost in the rankness of the alien polypiae they support. Creepers, by thousands, from the slender Supple Jack up to others big as the Boa, coil, snake-like, round every trunk, enfold every limb, and, gliding from top to top, embrangle the crowns of a dozen forest giants in a hundred Gordian knots. Such, too, is the luxuriance of the whole tangled mass of vegetation that sun and air scarce can penetrate: glimpses, only, of the sky are caught through the leafy canopy above, and often at high noon day in our fields it is green twilight in our woods.

Among the most common trees in present use are the Kauri, yielding a valuable gum dug up at the roots of the tree in large masses and often an article of export, and the Red and the White Pine (frequently displaying clear branchless stems 80 feet long by 5 in diameter, and without a knot), adapted for every purpose of house and ship building; the Puriri, or iron wood, equal in durability to teak or oak; the Rata and the Pohutukawa, used for ship-timbers and wheelwrights' purposes; the Kohekohe, and others, used for shingles, split-stuff, and fencing; the Totara, specimens of which have been met with 10 feet in diameter; and a variety of fancy woods, adapted for general purposes, for furniture and turnery.

Among the smaller trees and tree-shrubs, called "Light Bush," growing about the edges of the great forests, or

clothing the dells and valleys of the open country, are found three varieties of the beautiful Fern-tree, often 30 feet high, the elegant Nikau, the sweet-scented Manuka, the fruity Poroporo, the laurel-like Karaka, the Ngaio, the fragrant Veronica, and the gigantic Myrtle; and these beautiful evergreens, intermingled with the English rose, laurel, lilac, and laburnum, form shrubberies around the New Zealand cottages of a beauty and a variety, needing a Paxton to describe.

The common Fern, the wild Flax, the Tutu, the Ti tree (a sort of palm), the Toetoe and Raupo (useful thatching and hut-building plants), and about twenty varieties of wild grazing grasses, form the most common vegetation of the plains and valleys. The Fern, more or less intermingled with the latter plants, covers immense districts in both islands, and frequently attains a height of five and six feet. The root (softened in the embers) was formerly the chief bread substance of the Natives, and is still the chief provender of the wild pig.

The Wild Flax (Phormium tenax) is a flag-like plant, throwing out a bunch of splendid leaves four and five feet long by three inches broad, and bearing a profusion of pink blossoms, much frequented by the bee. This is the plant which, before the introduction of blankets and European clothing, supplied the natives with the material for their mats and garments. In its green state, strips of it tied together are commonly used by the colonists as rough string, and a great and increasing portion of the rope and cordage required by the fleet of coasting vessels is now manufactured in the Colony from the prepared fibre. The fibre is reputed to be the strongest vegetable Substance known; and from the luxuriant abundance of the plant, its quickness of growth, and improvability by cultivation, it is expected that the preparation and export of the fibre will eventually become an important branch of colonial industry.

In addition, too, to the number of valuable trees and plants indigenous to New Zealand, her vegetable kingdom

has received great extension by the introduction of exotics. Many of the ornamental Australian trees such as blue gum, acacia, Norfolk Island pine, and many of our English trees, such as elm, beech, willow, fir, ash, and oak, are already rooted in our young Britain of the South. Every grain, fruit, flower, and vegetable of the Old Country is now seen in full perfection in her fields, orchards, and gardens; cresses mantle her little homestead brooks, and mushrooms abound in her pastures; while clover, turnip, cabbage, carrots, spinach, mint, thyme and various stray vegetables and garden plants, spreading themselves over the country in some apparently unaccountable manner, are found in many districts mixed up with the indigenous vegetation of the Land, and threatening to oust even the vigorous "natives" of the Soil.

MINERAL WEALTH. – The late Admiral Fitzroy, second Governor of New Zealand, a good geologist and a scientific man, in one of his despatches to the Colonial office, says: – "Beneath the productive surface of these teeming Islands are mineral stores as yet hardly known. If, from merely scratching projecting corners of the Land, some dozen valuable minerals have been discovered – coal, iron, silver, lead, tin, copper, nickel, manganese, alum, and sulphur – what may not be anticipated after a few years of research in the interior?"

GOLD. – By Governor Fitzroy's marked exception, here, of any mention of gold it would almost appear that he did not believe the country possessed it – but, already some 70 tons of the poet's "root of evil," of a value of ten millions sterling, 19 have been exported from New Zealand; while the present yield of the Nelson and Canterbury "West Coast" Diggings, alone, is estimated to be at the rate of £3,000,000 a-year.

The great Australian gold discoveries in 1851, here

and there, led a sanguine Settler in New Zealand to stay the plough awhile, and do a little at "prospecting." Many an enriched Australian digger, too, tempted over by soil and climate, planted his home in New Zealand – thus, "prospecting" came to have more votaries, and, soon, some startling results ensued. The first real New Zealand Gold Field was discovered in 1857, in the northern portion of the Nelson Province; the second, in a lone gully by a remote little stream called the Tuapeka in the Otago Province. Here, 3,000 people were soon at work, taking out 6,000 oz. a week; the news flew, a "rush" from Australia set in, and hordes of diggers, "bearded like the Pard," taking possession of Otago's village-capital – douce, dour, little free-kirk Dunedin – changed it in a twinkling into a rough young, roaring, ranting, Melbourne. Fresh "prospecting" produced a dozen lesser Tuapekas – then, the precious metal revealed itself at Haverlock, in the province of Marlborough; then, at Coromandel, in the province of Auckland; while, more recently, splendid gold fields have been discovered at Hokitika, Greymouth, and elsewhere on the wild west coast of Canterbury and Nelson.

At the present time, perhaps the gold fields of New Zealand may be employing, altogether, some 15,000 people; and the respective "yields" (in value) of the various fields may be roughly estimated as follows: –

£

Fields of the Province of Auckland

50,000

" " Marlborough...

150,000

" " Nelson

600,000

" " Canterbury

1,200,000

" " Otago

8,000,000

Hitherto, a large portion of New Zealand's gold has been obtained by little parties of diggers merely plying the rude spade and pick – but combination, science and machinery, are now entering for the glittering prizes: Companies, rock-blasting and crushing, and dredging golden river beds, are getting to work. And as every day's experience seems to strengthen the belief that

most of the country forming the rugged western wilderness of the South Island, extending almost from Dusky Bay to Cape Farewell, will be found "auriferous," there is nothing unreasonable in the assertion of the possibility that New Zealand may eventually prove almost as rich a gold country as even Australia, and come to dazzle the world with her "Ovens" and her "Ararats," her "Ballarats" and "Bendigos."

The astounding metamorphose which gold instantly effects in the rudest wilderness, and the almost equally astounding capacity of diggers for drink, are well shown in the following extract from Mackay's "Otago and gold fields Almanac" for 1866.

"Only twelve short months ago, Hokitika had no existence. The wilderness it stands in had probably never been trodden by foot of man. Now, it has a principal street half a mile long, containing 300 buildings, mostly of substantial character. There are no less than FIFTY-FIVE hotels in this street, the great majority chiefly depending on a bar trade. Harding's Corinthian Hall is a large building, capable of holding about 700 people, and in which Thatcher performed with great success. It has its two Dancing Saloons, which are well patronised. There are over 60 stores of all kinds and varieties: 8 butchers, 9 shoemakers, 6 blacksmiths, 4 restaurants, 3 chemists, 7 bakers, 2 tinsmiths, 4 hair-dressers, 5 tobacconists, and other trades in proportion. There are 5 medical men and an hospital, 2 solicitors, and of course a Court House, Magistrate, Officials, and a Lock-up. There are Post Office, Custom House, and Telegraph Office, and the Telegraph posts and wires to Christchurch are laid, and in working order. A good Quay has been formed, and this forms a respectable promenade ground for the townsfolk. There are three Banks in the township, viz., the New Zealand, the New South Wales, and the Union. In all, the buildings number already over 500, and are rapidly increasing week after week. Many of the principal merchants of Canterbury, Otago and Nelson have established branches here, while on each side of the Gray River, about 20 miles from Hokitika, townships of rising importance are springing up."

IRON. – Iron in various forms is found in many localities, and some of the coast rocks are so powerfully magnetic as to affect the compass. The most remarkable form in which the ore is found, however, is that in which it appears at New Plymouth, where the sea

beach, for miles, is covered with, an immense deposit of the richest black iron sand – so powerfully magnetic, too, that if a sixpenny magnet be dropped on it it is taken up covered with feathery steel-like particles. An imperial pint of this sand weighs 4 lbs., while it is so fine that it runs easily through a sieve of 4,900 holes to the square inch. It has been reported on by several well known metallurgists in this country, and pronounced to be the "purest iron ore at present known." The following tables show its constituent parts: –

(Sample No. 1). In 100 parts, there were of

Peroxide of Iron

88

Oxide of Titanium, with Silicia

11

Loss

1

100

(Sample No, 2). Professor Herapath's Analysis

Iron

78

Titanium

16

Silicia

6

100

Taking it lying as the common sand of the beach, it yields no less than 61 per cent, of the finest iron; while, if treated by the "cementation" process, it yields a tough first-class silvery steel surpassing any yet produced. Metallurgical science shows that if titanium be mixed with iron the steel obtained therefrom is much improved – but titanium being a scarce ore comes too dear to be used in the manufacture of common steel. In this New Plymouth sand, however, nature has stepped in, and made a free gift of both metals, ready combined and on the largest scale.

Speaking of this article a late correspondent of a Melbourne paper, says: –

"I read with interest your short note regarding the analysis of the black sand from the West Coast of New Zealand. It confirms an opinion I have long held, that the titaniferous sands

of New Zealand contain the precious metals, besides in their ordinary character capable of being rendered of immense importance to the mercantile world. It is found in greater or lesser quantities in almost every province, but it is supposed by many that the great source of this ore is Mount Egmont. Without committing myself to any theory on this subject, the fact is patent that at Taranaki, on the West Coast, and especially in front of the town of New Plymouth, and within a few miles of the mount, the largest quantity of this black sand is to be found. I know, from personal observation and survey, that the quantity is inexhaustible. Samples of this ore have been sent home to every important town in Europe, where iron and steel form the staple of their manufactures. A report from the Artillery Department, Royal Foundry, Berlin, states that the Taranaki sand possesses a quality which renders it very valuable. A report from the foundry of the Royal Artillery of Paris states that the black sand contains in itself the essentials of crude or cast iron, steel, and malleable iron, combined with charcoal, lithium, and a portion of oxide, which render it invaluable for every purpose of machinery, and without limits for commercial industry." It adds, further, that the crystals of oxide and lithium which this sand contains produce a metal capable of the highest polish, and convertible into the finest instruments.

Messrs. Mosely, the famous cutlers and tool makers of King Street, Covent Garden, have manufactured some splendid specimen articles from the Taranaki steel sand; and we cannot but hope that when the "Native Troubles" which, for twenty years, have blighted this most beautiful part of New Zealand are, at last, happily over, the long enduring Colonists, allying themselves with Mother Country capital and science, will succeed in establishing effective smelting works for the utilisation of their wealth of iron in the way of an export of bar-steel.

COAL, COPPER, &C. – Coal, required in most parts of New Zealand far more for steam than for domestic purposes – the forests being equal to the supply of fuel for generations to come – is found in various parts of both Islands. As yet, none has been discovered so good as our best English coal; but some of it is superior to the best Australian. Copper is worked on a small scale at the Great Barrier Island; lime and building stone are

abundant; while chrome, plumbago, ochres, useful earths and clays, and various of the ores and minerals mentioned by Governor Fitzroy at the commencement of this chapter, are known to exist. Indeed, as capital and labour, skill and science, flow into our young "Britain of the South," and her underground stores come to be pryed into and developed, it may well be that she will become a country where great "Mining Industries" shall employ and enrich as many of her people as even the Plough and the Golden Fleece.

16 Game Laws, we hope, will never have a place in the New Zealand statute book; but, the enlightened Provincial Parliament of Auckland have passed a preliminary "Birds' Protection Act:" of which the third clause is this: – 'No pheasant or quail shall be hunted, taken or killed except during the months of April, May, June and July, in any year.'

17 See page 157.

18 The only known exception is the Tutu, injurious to fresh landed sheep and cattle. The berry of this plant is not unlike the elder-berry; its seeds are poisonous, and the children of any newly-arrived emigrants, living where the shrub is common, should be cautioned against eating the berry. The juice, expressed by the natives and then boiled with a certain delicate sea-weed, makes a pink jelly, held to be rather a native delicacy.

19 The officially declared value of all the gold exported from New Zealand up to Jan. 1st, 1866, was nearly, £9,000,000. If to this we add the produce of the last six months, and remember, that there is always a large amount in the hands of the Diggers at the time when the "exports" are declared, we shall arrive at a total of quite £10,000,000.

CHAPTER V. THE NINE PROVINCES, AND THEIR CHIEF TOWNS...

CHAPTER V.

THE NINE PROVINCES, AND THEIR CHIEF TOWNS AND SETTLEMENTS, WITH THEIR "LAND REGULATIONS."

New Zealand, the "Britain of the South," as prophetic Colonists fondly call her, is at present divided into nine great Provinces: Auckland, Taranaki, Hawkes' Bay, Wellington, in the North Island – Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury, Otago, Southland, in the South.

AUCKLAND. – Auckland, the northern Province of the North Island, is about half as large as England; while its present pioneering Colonist population does not, as yet, exceed 60,000.

The chief distinguishing features of this splendid Province are these: – A warmer climate, capable of ripening maize, and here and there the orange – exclusive possession of the Kauri pine forests – the presence of nearly two-thirds of the remnant of the native population – possession of Lake Taupo, the largest of New Zealand lakes, and of numerous hot springs and chalybeate waters – great facilities of water carriage, the various estuaries, creeks and rivers affording passage for coasting craft, boats and canoes, through 1000

miles of country – admirable position of the port-capital – and great excellence of the chief harbours.

Auckland, in South latitude 37 deg., the rising young capital of the Province, was founded by the first Governor of New Zealand, Captain Hobson, R. N., in 1840. The town and immediate neighbourhood may now number some 15,000 inhabitants, and the suburban villages, lying within a circle of 20 miles, may number some 15,000 more. A glance at the map displays its commanding position. Planted on a short neck of level land, it may be said to stand on two great harbours, only six miles apart, the Waitemata and Manakau. An arm of the former connects it with the rivers Thames and Piako, giving water carriage through fifty miles of country – an arm of the latter almost connects it with the rivers Waikato and Waipa, navigable for canoes through some hundred miles of the richest agricultural districts; while the projected cut, joining the Waitemata with the Kaipara, will bring the capital into direct communication with many fertile valleys to the north. Creeks and inlets of these two harbours indent the town and suburb shores at every point, and as a canal of four miles would unite them, and enable a frigate to glide from sea to sea, there is some reason for the boast that Auckland is the "Corinth of the South."

Waitemata, the eastern harbour, perhaps deserves to rank as the finest in New Zealand, and will ever be the one the most frequented by shipping; but the western harbour, Manakau, though presenting a dangerous shifting bar, which proved fatal to H. M. S. Orpheus, is, nevertheless, a fine sea lake, well suited for carefully-handled steamers and small craft, and opening a most convenient sea path to New Plymouth, Nelson, Wellington, and all the Settlements to the south.

Auckland is built on the southern shore of the eastern harbour, and a good metalled road of six miles, passing through continuous farms, villas, and gardens, leads from the town to the rising port of Onehunga, the

landing-place or terminus of the western harbour. Auckland displays a line of wharfs and jetties, and two or three streets of shops and substantial warehouses, together with various modest public buildings, such as churches and chapels, Government house, barracks, banks, custom house, and Provincial Government Offices. The botanical gardens, Parnel and the little suburban bays sparkling with the white villas of the wealthy merchants and public officers, offer many beautiful walks; while "one-tree hill," and the high grounds behind the town present a pleasing variety of scenery scarcely to be surpassed.

Auckland is the head-quarters of the Missionary bodies, head-quarters of the troops, head-quarters of native trade and intercourse, and these manifestations of progress and civilisation, coupled with the commercial activity of the people, the constant arrival and departure of shipping, and the daily coming and going of the native canoes, impart an air of animation, variety, and bustle to this little Capital of the North, seldom witnessed in the early days of young colonial towns.

The Coromandel District, lying opposite the city about 30 miles off across the gulf, is both an auriferous country and one stored with the finest timber. The Great Barrier Island about 50 miles north-east of the Auckland harbour, to which it forms a good outer breakwater, is the seat of a considerable timber trade and also of a small copper mine. Kawau, a beautiful small Island, the property of Sir George Grey which, not more for his own pleasure than the good of the Colony, he is storing with many useful plants animals and birds, lies within the Great Barrier; and these, together with the flourishing Pensioner villages, and the small settlements of Waiuku, Papakura and some others, form what may be called a circle of suburban districts surrounding the capital and chief port town.

As to the Rural territories of the Auckland Province, the reader may gain the best idea of them by glancing at them divided into three great portions – namely, the

long Peninsula forming the northern portion of the Province, the East-coast country and the Waikato country.

The Northern Peninsula, from Auckland to the North Cape, is 200 miles in length, by from 30 to 50 in breadth, and in position, shape, and climate it bears about the same resemblance to the rest of New Zealand as Cornwall and South Devon may do to England. The surface is much broken by wooded mountain ranges of moderate elevation, and a large portion of the western side is covered with Kauri forests, here attaining their finest growth. The country is richly watered, and presents clusters of fertile valleys running inland from the numerous estuaries and river harbours indenting both coasts. Here, we find a chain of flourishing little Settlements extending almost from the young city of Auckland up to the North Cape, and consisting of sturdy, hard-working, Nonconformist Albertland, 20 on the fine waters of the Kaipara – of Wangari and its Nova-Scotian settlers – of Hokianga famous for Kauri spars – of the Bay of Islands with its magnificent harbour – and of Wangaroa, Monganui and some others – all little communities linked to each other and the young metropolis by coasting craft and small steamers, bush tracks and rude roads, and all busily engaged in the pioneering work of civilization, subduing the wilderness and "making the desert blossom like the rose."

"No part of New Zealand," says Mr, Hursthouse, "is so rich in historic interest as this northern portion of the Province of Auckland. Some future Macaulay may relate that, here, unharmed, the missionary fathers first raised the cross among ferocious cannibals; here, the first press was set up, and the first Bible printed in the native tongue; here, the early colonisation of the country commenced, and here stood Kororareka, the old 'Alsatia' of the Pacific; here, the Treaty of

Waitangi, the Maori Magna Charta, was signed by the Queen's first Governor and her Maori Barons; and here, the Red Cross first fluttered in the breeze, and gave to Britain, a 'Britain of the South.' Rich, too, in historic associations, the Peninsula is the reverse of barren in natural gifts. Here are the forests of Kauri, the finest flax, and the great stores of gum; here, from a hundred valleys, will come large exports of farm and dairy produce, corn, and fruits, and honey, and oil, and wool; here, peach and nectarine, pear and mulberry, bow their branches fruited to the ground; and here, pomegranate and citron, olive and orange, might ripen in the summer sun."

Of the two remaining great rural divisions of Auckland, namely the "East Coast" country and the "Waikato" country, but little need be said; for although they form by far the largest and by far the finest portions of the Province, and would support a colonist population of three or four millions, yet being at present almost entirely in the sterile hands of a few thousand natives they offer, as yet, but comparatively little trace of European settlement and civilization. The former may be described, generally, as the territory lying along the south eastern shores of the Province, including the famous Bay of Plenty, and may embrace an area of 150 miles in length by 30 in breadth. This is that part of New Zealand which was first visited by Cook, and many of the Bays and Capes now bear the names given them by our illustrious circumnavigator. The magnificent "Waikato," or rather Waikato and Taupo, country consists mainly of a central portion of the Province, some 100 miles in length by 40 in breadth, watered by the Waikato and the Waipa, commencing to the south of the capital, and running southwards down to lake Taupo. In genial climate, rich soil, agricultural and pastoral admixture of forest, fern, flax and grass lands, in water carriage, in striking scenery, in geological phenomena, this portion of the Province of Auckland is entitled to rank as the very finest and most interesting large district in the whole

of New Zealand. Taupo, which forms its southern terminus, a splendid lake 100 miles in circumference, surrounded by lakelets, hot-springs, and chalybeate waters, may possibly become the site of some future Cheltenham in the "Britain of the South," while, towering over Taupo, 7000 feet high, there is snowcapped Tongariro, forming a noble back-ground to these wild Hesperides of the North.

AUCKLAND LAND REGULATIONS. – By the "Treaty of Waitangi," made between the British Government and the Natives in 1840, when the regular colonization of New Zealand first commenced and the Natives made over to the Queen all or any their rights of sovereignty over the Islands, the entire territory of the Colony, upwards of 70,000,000 of acres, was formally admitted to be the property of the 80,000 natives then left in the country; and the Crown pledged itself to seek to obtain no portion of this vast wilderness for the purposes of colonization, save and except by the way of friendly purchase of the native owners.

This agreement, as before remarked, has been scrupulously observed. With the exception of ample "native reserves," the whole of the great South Island, where, in fact, there are only a few hundred natives, has been acquired in this manner; while some fine territory, including many good agricultural districts, has gradually been purchased in the provinces of Auckland, Wellington, Taranaki, and Hawkes' Bay, which, together, constitute the North Island. These functions of treating with the Native Tribes for the purchase of native territory are ably performed by what is called the "General Government" of New Zealand; but when the territory is fully purchased it is made over to the Local Government of the Province in which it happens to lie. The Local Government then surveys and classifies it, and leases and sells it to individual customers on certain fixed terms; and it is the annual proceeds of such sales and leases which form the largest portion of each Province's public revenue. The

question of what is the best price to fix on the wild lands of a new country in order to attract to it an emigrant population bringing capital and labour, is one which has been much disputed: – if a very low price be put on it it is apt to be bought up in large blocks of tens of thousands of acres by capitalist speculators who may retail it to the actual cultivator at an enormous profit; while, on the other hand, if a very high price be put on it the cultivator's little capital may be nearly exhausted in buying his "raw land," and he may not have sufficient left for the purposes of stocking and cultivating and settling down. Here, indeed, however, as in most things, there would seem to be a happy mean; and in our Australian Colonies the general voice would proclaim about a pound per acre as the happy mean – though, looking at the success of the Canterbury system where, by charging a higher price, a much larger revenue is raised for roads, bridges and public works, and for importing labour by giving "assisted passages" – some would argue that, both for the public good and the good of the buyer, £2 per acre for wild land would be a better price than £1.

Various of the Provinces of New Zealand having taken different views of the question of the "best price" for wild land, have adopted different Land Regulations; and the following are the principal features of those now, and long, current in Auckland. 21

Country land is sold at the fixed cash price of 10s. acre; but if two or more buyers fix on the same lot it is put up to auction between such buyers, and knocked down to the highest bidder. To attract officers, old soldiers and sailors, and

qualified school-teachers to settle in the province, Auckland grants commissioned officers 400, non-commissioned and warrant officers 80, private soldiers marines and seamen 60, and school-teachers 80, acres of land; while, to attract labourers, mechanics, domestic servants, farmers, graziers, traders, small capitalists, and others, she makes them free grants as follows: – 40 acres are given to each person, or to each parent or member of a family who is eighteen years of age, with 20 acres for each child between five and eighteen. The farmer, too, or other capitalist or small capitalist of any class, also receives an additional 40 or 20 acre grant (as the age of the person may be) for each servant, or labourer, or friend, or relative whose passage he may pay.

It is particularly worthy of remark that the Grantee chooses his land for himself in any of the surveyed open Districts which he may prefer; he may choose it, too, any time within five years after his arrival in the Colony, and is not tied down by any of those conditions as to cultivating and settling on the land which have generally been attached to Free Grants in Canada and elsewhere. Thus, small capitalists, such as professional men, retired officers, traders, and others, not wishing at first to go on the land, but preferring to reside in or near the town of Auckland (practising any profession, living on some small income, or engaging in business) would be at perfect liberty to do so. They could either select the land at once on their arrival – placing on it some labourer's family whom they might have brought out with them – or could let it at a small or nominal rent to some working tenant who would act as their pioneer and clear the way for them – or they might decline to select it at once, and only take it up some time within the five years, when fresh and better districts might be open for settlement. The mechanic or labourer, too, is at perfect liberty if he so pleases, to remain in Auckland, or any of the villages, following his trade or calling until he finds that he can move on to his Grant, and commence the cultivation of it with the little capital of £100 or so, which an industrious sober man may easily save up from his high wages. The sole condition, indeed, imposed on the Grantee is this – that for a period of five years after his arrival in the province, neither he, nor any member of his family, nor any servant, labourer, or other person whom he may take with him, and for whom he may get a grant, shall be out of and absent from the province of Auckland for more than twelve calendar months. 22 Land Orders for these grants (obtainable through us)

are issued, to eligible applicants, by the agents of the Auckland Government in London on payment of a fee of 10s. for every 40 acres.

Under these "Free Grant" Regulations, too, the Auckland Government, by a wise provision, sets apart special blocks of land for what are called "Special Settlements," whereby bodies of people entertaining the same religious opinions, or coming from the same locality, and desirous of emigrating in a party and forming some little community of their own, can carry out their views. In this way, the flourishing Settlement of Albertland has been founded in the northern peninsula of Auckland, together with a Church of England, a Lincolnshire, a Nova Scotian, and an Isle of Man Township. Indeed, these "Free Grant" Regulations, in attracting several thousands of high-class emigrants to the province, have proved a great success; and, with some slight modifications, might, we think, be adopted with signal advantage by every province of the North Island, where, as we know, "population," that life-blood of a young country, is the first great want.

TARANAKI.

Taranaki, or New Plymouth, as it was originally called, 23 forms the mid-west province of the North Island, and has an extreme length of 80 miles, a breadth of 70, and a coast line of 40 leagues. Possessing an area of 3,000,000 acres, it is about twice the size of our English Devonshire; and though, from the fertility of its soil and the beauty of its scenery, it has

long been called the Garden of New Zealand, it has been so incessantly disturbed and reduced by "Native Troubles," that in this, the twenty-fifth year of its colonization, it numbers scarcely 5,000 people.

The Settlement was founded by a body of west-country gentlemen, including Molesworths, Bullers, Woolcombes, Courtenays, St. Aubyns, Trelawneys; and its village-capital, New Plymouth, in latitude 39 deg., about 150 miles by sea, both from Auckland and Nelson, was planted by Frederick Alonzo Carrington and a pioneering party of Devon and Cornish colonists in 1841.

In earlier and happier days, the following sketch, by Mr. Hursthouse, of the little capital of the place, was, we believe, a very faithful one: –

"Snugly planted on the margin of the beach, embosomed amid gentle hills, and watered by the Huatoki, Mangotuku, and tributary burns, it displays its granite church and chapels, its rustic mills, and breweries, snug hostelries, stores, and primitive shops; but, affecting no 'town airs,' stands out before the world a robust, hearty-looking village, famed throughout the land for its pretty women, troops of rosy children, honey, fat mutton, mead, and dairies of Devonshire cream. The appearance, too, of the whole Settlement from sea is strikingly beautiful and varied: the taste for sylvan scenery and quiet rustic beauty being gratified by the combination of stream and forest, of dell and valley, of pastures and trim fields dotted with cattle or yellow: with corn; while, for the Salvator Rosa eye, there is that snow-crested Apollo of mountains, Mount Egmont, striking the eye a hundred miles off, and shooting up from a sea of foliage 8,000 feet into the brilliant sky.'"

So much of this attractive picture has, however, since been blackened by war, that it is now no longer so true a one. It would be impossible, here, to give our readers the history of a struggle known far and wide in Australasia under the name of the Taranaki, Land Question, where 2,000 or 3,000 turbulent Natives having already nearly 3,000,000 acres of fertile wild

land of their own, of which they scarce used a rood, have long been suffered to play the dog in the manger, and to seek to wrest from the settlers, by quibble and trick, and then by force, a few thousand acres actually purchased three times over by the Government from some of themselves! 24

The history, in all its enormity, is given in Mr. Hursthouse's work; and few, we think, would rise from its perusal without coming to the conclusion that although in our early colonization of America, and of other countries, aborigines were sometimes cruelly, often unjustly, seldom kindly used, yet that in New Zealand, in this Taranaki case, going from one extreme to the other, the old relations between the Settler and the Savage have been reversed; that, here, it is the Natives who have been the monopolising, dominating race; and that, here, the petted, pampered Savage has been suffered to become, nay, almost encouraged to become, the oppressor and despoiler of the White Man.

We hope, however, that brighter days are about to dawn on the remnant of the brave and patient long-suffering men of Taranaki. In addition to their Soil of unsurpassed fertility, their latent stores of mineral wealth in the Steel Sand, described at page 35, some promising Petrolium Springs have lately been discovered in their Sugar Loaf Isles. Their Settlement, too, (true "Cinderella" of New Zealand Settlements) though "lost to sight to memory dear," is still affectionately remembered in that famous part of England – that land of Drake and Blake – from which she sprang; and if, when the little storm-beaten band of colonists can lay aside the Rifle and resume the Plough, they would adopt some such "free grant" regulations as those of Auckland, we think that a body of 3,000 or 4,000 of

the flower of the Devon and Cornish peasantry, and of the small farmer class, might easily be attracted over to New Plymouth – stalwart arms who would soon revive the Desolated Beauty of New Zealand, and have a Cornish hug to spare for the fractious Maori, should that "Pet of Exeter Hall" ever rise to wrestle again.

LAND REGULATIONS. – Country land is surveyed in lots of from 40 to 240 acres, a reserved price of 10s. per acre is put on all of them, and they are sold by public auction to the highest bidder. Naval and military grants are made as in Auckland.

HAWKES' BAY.

Until the year 1858 Hawkes' Bay formed a portion of the Province of Wellington. In size, compactness of form, pleasantness of climate, and centrality of position between Auckland and Wellington, Hawkes' Bay bears a considerable resemblance to Taranaki – containing, though, a smaller proportion of rich agricultural land, but being a more open, grassy, pastoral country. The Native population may be about 4000, the Colonist about the same. The area of the Province is rather more than two and a half millions of acres, about one-half of which has been acquired in the usual way, by purchase from the Natives. The capital is the infant town of Napier, in latitude 39 1/2 deg., about 200 miles by sea from Wellington, and 370 from Auckland. It possesses a fair harbour for steamers and coasting craft, and may now number about 1000 inhabitants. Various villages and small townships are springing up in different parts of this snug little Province, and on the thorough pacification of the East Coast Natives, Hawkes' Bay, especially if she have the wisdom to adopt the Free Grant System, will probably become a favorite New Zealand emigration field.

LAND REGULATIONS. – The same as those of Wellington.

WELLINGTON.

Wellington, the southern Province of the North Island, is about a fifth of the size of England. Its extreme length from north to south is nearly 200 miles, its greatest breadth from east to west about 80; the coast line embraces a sweep of 100 leagues. The colonist population approaches 18,000; the native is under 10,000.

The chief distinguishing features of this fine province are its somewhat greater liability to volcanic action; its centrality of position on the great marine highway of Cook's Strait; and the picturesque diversity of its surface, everywhere well watered, and exhibiting hill, dale, lake, mountain, valley, and wide extending plain, some portions wooded, others covered with grass, fern, and shrubs. The Province is best sketched in three divisions, namely, Wellington town and neighbourhood, the Cook's Strait Settlements, and the pastoral, Wairarapa, Country.

Wellington (south lat. 41 1/4 deg.), the capital of the Province, 180 miles by sea from New Plymouth and Canterbury, and 150 from Nelson, was the first Settlement founded by the New Zealand Company, and was planted by the late Col. Wakefield, and a band of admirable pioneer colonists, in 1840. Standing at the entrance of Cook's Strait, midway between the northern and southern extremities of the two Islands, Wellington occupies the most central site in New Zealand; while in terrace formation of its site, and in bay-like harbour, it is said to bear some rude resemblance to Naples. The harbour is a noble sheet of water, six miles in length by five in width, surrounded by wooded hills, and opening by a deep channel into Cook's Strait. The town, containing a population approaching 8,000, occupies a fine position at the western corner of the harbour. It displays a line of stores, shops, and substantial warehouses standing on the margin of the water, with some fine public buildings, and many a snug

villa, on the hilly terraces above; and having lately been made the seat of the General Government of the Colony, and the port of call and refit for the new Panama Line of Mail Steamers, Wellington has become the residence of the Governor and his tiny Court, and has received an accession of shipping dignity, which, judging by the preparations making, 25 she seems determined to merit and maintain.

Evidences of the volcanic action still lingering in New Zealand are now perceptible chiefly in the town and neighbourhood of Wellington. In the last twenty years two or three considerable shocks have been experienced; but, as before remarked, the inhabitants, who are the people chiefly concerned in the character of the ground they stand on, do not appear to regard their occasional "shakes" as any serious drawback to the rise and progress of their infant city. Situated, too, on the edge of the funnel of Cook's Strait, the town is swept by frequent gales of wind; and good Bishop Selwyn says, with some humour, "that no one can speak of the healthfulness of New Zealand till he has been ventilated by the breezes of Wellington, where malaria is no more to be feared than on the top of Chimborazo, where active habits of industry and enterprise are evidently favoured by the elastic tone and perpetual motion of the atmosphere; and where no fog can ever linger long to deaden the intellectual faculties of the inhabitants."

Wellington possesses few or no farm districts lying contiguous to the town. Wooded steeps rise almost perpendicularly from the waters of the harbour-lake, and the country, for twenty miles around, consists mainly of densely-timbered mountain ranges cut up by gullies and ravines – a country presenting many a dell and dingle for garden, cottage, and villa, but offering little or no available land for the plough. The Hutt,

a rich and lovely valley, though subject to floods, crowned by a thriving village about eight miles from the town, along the shores of the lake, is, indeed, the only agricultural district immediately in connection with the Town.

THE COOK'S STRAIT SETTLEMENTS. – Though, however, the rugged forest belt surrounding Wellington isolates her, geographically, from the open country of the plough and the fleece, she now possesses ready access to some of the finest agricultural and pastoral lands in either island. A good mountain road of twelve miles, winding through the forest hills at the back of the town, and dotted with roadside cottage-clearings, leads to Porirua, a small village and pretty lake-like harbour, for small craft, opening into Cook's Strait; and here, lying along the shores of the Strait, commences a tract of fine coast country, 100 miles in length by from 10 to 20 in breadth; and here, virtually joining each other, and connected by a fair beach road, we find the Settlements of Manawatu, Rangitiki, Turakina, and Wanganui.

Manawatu, about 70 miles from Wellington, with which it is connected by a good road, is a considerable river, navigable for coasting craft, and running through a magnificent timber district of great fertility. The Colonists, to the number of some 500, are scattered along its banks; and possess a considerable extent of cleared land, and some fine sheep and cattle. Rangitiki and Turakina are little river townships of a similar character.

Wanganui, fifty miles north of Manawatu, is the most important member of this chain of coast settlements. Its river, broad as the Thames at Southwark, and over which an iron bridge is soon to be thrown, running nearly 300 miles through a bold and rugged country, affords canoe water-carriage for a large amount of native produce, and admits vessels of 200 tons up to the town. The village-town, planted about two miles from the mouth of the river,

is a military post, a leading mission station, and the head-quarters and chief depot of a large and flourishing native trade, and is now soon to be connected with the city of Wellington by Telegraph and "Cobbs'" coaches. The district now numbers some 2,000 settlers, who carry on a direct trade with Sydney and Melbourne; and on the settlement of the Taranaki troubles, which have somewhat affected the place, Wanganui may well grow into one of the most flourishing districts of the North.

WAIRARAPA. – A fair road through the valley of the Hutt, and then over some high ranges, places Wellington in communication with the Wairarapa plains, distant from the town about 40 miles. This is one of the famous pastoral districts of New Zealand, numbering now about 2,500 settlers – exhibiting scenery, too, perhaps equal to anything in Switzerland, and dotted over with three or four thriving villages, and the homesteads and stock stations of numbers of thriving squatters, rich in flocks and herds.

The interior of the province of Wellington, a country watered by the feeders of the Manawatu and Wanganui, traversed by the Rua Wahine range and running up to the confines of lake Taupo, is comparatively little known. The native population is, however, small and scattered, and the tract is said to exhibit various small plains and valleys well suited for cultivation.

LAND REGULATIONS. – Country land is divided into what may be called agricultural land within hundreds, agricultural land not within hundreds, and rough pastoral land. On the first, published reserved prices are put, and it is sold by auction, the purchaser having certain free grazing rights on any unsold lands within the hundred. The country land lying beyond proclaimed hundreds is sold at a fixed price of 10s. an acre, and the rough pastoral land bears a reserved price of 5s. an acre, and is sold by auction. No "Free Grants" of any kind are made.

NELSON.

Nelson, the northern Province of the South Island, is about the sixth of the size of England. Its extreme length from north to south is 160 miles, its greatest breadth from east to west about 100, while the coast line embraces a sweep of 250 miles. The colonist population of the Province exceeds 14,000; the native is about 700.

The chief characteristics of Nelson are these – small comparative proportion of cultivable land; small native population; the existence of gold-fields; indications of great mineral wealth in coal, chrome, and copper; and a climate said to be the finest in New Zealand.

Nelson (south latitude 41 1/4 deg.), the capital of the Province, about 150 miles by sea from Wellington and New Plymouth, was the third Settlement founded by the New Zealand Company. Counting the suburbs, it may now contain about 6000 inhabitants, and was planted by the lamented late Captain Arthur Wakefield and a body of pioneer colonists in 1842. Standing on the margin of a snug, dock-like harbour, at the bottom of a noble Bay, and nestling from cold south blasts under a wall-like circle of precipitous hills, Nelson enjoys a climate of brilliant serenity, well fitting her to become New Zealand's bay-side Bath.

In picturing to himself these little New Zealand towns, however, the reader should bear in mind that they differ radically from anything in England. "When," says Mr. Hursthouse, "we are told that Auckland, And Wellington, and Nelson, and Christchurch are places containing a few thousand inhabitants, we might naturally suppose that they bore a certain resemblance to our second-class English towns; and that they possessed much the same local and relative importance as Warwick or Worcester, Beccles or Berwick. But the supposition would be utterly erroneous: the social features of the places are utterly dissimilar. The people of Warwick, for instance, were born in Warwick, have never been much out of

Warwick, speak Warwick English, have a small inheritance of Warwick ideas, and see no more of the reigning powers of the State and the governmental machinery of the country than may be compressed into the circumference of a Warwick Mayor. But the people of Auckland, and Wellington, and Napier, and New Plymouth, and Nelson, and Christchurch, and Dunedin, and Invercargill, are people brought to one focus from all parts of the United Kingdom: Liverpool merchant and London clerk, doctor from Dublin and lawyer from Leeds, M. A. from Magdalen and B. A. from Brazenose, naval officer from Jersey and old cavalry man from Brussels, Indian invalid and Lincolnshire squire, plumber from Portsmouth and brewer from Brighton, bishop from Eton and bricklayer from Bath, constitute their multifarious populations. Each place, too, has its own little parliament and complete governmental machinery on the spot; and this description of population and mode of government, coupled with the greater romance and hardiness of young colonial life, impart a social variety, a vigour, boldness, and originality of character to these little antipodal communities, which we should find little trace of in the small town populations of the Mother Country. The New Zealand provincial metropolis, too, is not more different from the English town in social aspects than it is in physical appearance. Gas and granite pavement, omnibus and perambulator, are things to come; streets are wider, buildings more scattered, shops more in the "general-store" style, suburbs more rural; 'rus in urbe' is the dominant character, and corn-field and dairy-farm oft border on the warehouse and the wharf."

Nelson, like Wellington, surrounded by a belt of hills and broken country, possesses but little available land in immediate connection with the town. The chief agricultural districts in the neighbourhood are the fine valley of the Waimea, a tract under high cultivation, and the Motueka, a pleasant district lying across the bay.

Collingwood, a township created by the early gold fields in the north-western corner of the Province, bids fair to become a flourishing little place should the diggings, here, extend; while if the auriferous country lately discovered in western Canterbury should be found to spread far northward, as expected, gold creations of the "Hokitika" character, described at page 34, may soon be exhibited in various spots on Nelson's rugged west coast; and be connected with the salubrious little city of Nelson even by a railroad.

LAND REGULATIONS. – Country Land is surveyed in lots of various sizes. A published reserved price, varying from 5s. to 40s. per acre, according to quality of soil and natural advantages, is put on each, and then they are sold by Public Auction to the highest bidder. No "Free Grants" of any kind are made.

MARLBOROUGH.

Until 1859 Marlborough formed a portion of the Nelson Province; and we cannot but think that, for its own interests and for those of Nelson, too, it would have done better to have remained a portion of the parent Province. Its extreme length from north-east to south-west is about 130 miles, its extreme breadth about 60. Being quite in its infancy, Marlborough does not as yet number more than 5,000 or 6,000 Settlers; but it is, we think, likely to become a favorite locality with emigrants when more known, and to display, in a few years, many a thriving little port and germ of inland town. The infant capital of the Province 26 is Blenheim, and the chief port Picton, the latter finely situated on one of the deep arms of Queen Charlotte's Sound.

The south-eastern portion of Marlborough consists mainly of the Wairau Plains, one of the finest and first occupied sheep districts in New Zealand. The

northern end, washed by Cook's Strait, is a rugged densely-wooded country, indented with coves, bays, creeks, havens, and harbours of every size, shape, and capacity. Queen Charlotte's Sound, in the centre of the group, 25 miles long, with one entrance 3, and the other 6 miles broad, is a gigantic ocean dock, capable of berthing the whole British navy. But the wooded hills rise so abruptly from the waters of these hundred and one harbours that many of them scarce offer a hundred acres for the plough; and until New Zealand is equipping an armament for the conquest of Japan, or the repression of France in the Pacific, most of these ocean docks will prove ornamental rather than useful to her good Province of Marlborough.

At the same time, it should be observed that the land around some of them, broken as it is, is land capable of producing corn and fruits in luxuriant abundance; and – looking at the fine position of these 'hundred havens' of Cook's Strait, at their centrality of position between the two provincial capitals of Wellington and Nelson, at the abundance of fish and timber they afford, at the fine climate and magnificent bay and forest scenery they possess – there can be no doubt that, as population spreads, some of them will become the seats of flourishing little communities of fishers, sawyers, shipwrights, small farmers, health-recruiting visitors, and the like – maintaining ready communication with each other, and with the markets of Nelson and Wellington, by steamer and coaster, yawl and yacht – while, dominating the noble waters of Queen Charlotte's Sound, says Mr. Hursthouse, "'Macaulay's Traveller' may one day see some great metropolis of the Pacific, in which South Britain will have her London, her Portsmouth, her Pembroke, combined."

LAND REGULATIONS. – Country Land may be said to be divided into two sorts, first and second class. A published reserved price of from 10s. to 20s. an acre is placed on the former, and one of from 5s. to 10s. on the latter; and both are sold by Auction to the highest bidder. No "Free Grants," whatever, are made.

CANTERBURY.

Canterbury, the splendid central province of the South Island, is about a third of the size of England and Wales. Its extreme length, north-east and southwest, is nearly 200 miles; its greatest breadth from east to west, about 170; its coast line, 400. The colonist population now exceeds 35,000; the native is only about 500.

Canterbury was founded by a brilliant association of peers, bishops, and commoners, patriotically interested in improving the character of British colonisation; and Lyttelton, its port town (south lat. 43 1/2 deg., 180 miles by sea from Wellington, and 200 from Otago), together with Christchurch, its young city of the plains, may be said to have been planted by John Robert Godley, James Edward Fitzgerald, and a body of pioneer colonists, in 1850.

Port Victoria, the harbour of Lyttelton, though inferior in some respects to the Cook's Strait and northern harbours, is a fine land-locked ocean-inlet, and its duplicate planted at Deal would be a cheap bargain to British commerce at the price of ten millions sterling.

Lyttelton, now counting some 2,000 inhabitants, is a neat infant town, presenting an air of regularity and finish seldom seen in the rough young settlements of a New Land. It is surrounded by precipitous hills, climbing which, we see beneath us the far-famed Canterbury plains – "three millions of acres rolling back in gentle rise, forty miles to the foot of the central highlands, watered by twenty rivers, and spreading north and south further than the eye can reach."

A deep fringe of fine cattle-grazing and agricultural land extends along the seaboard of this noble plain; but the great inland portion of it is a true pastoral country, covered with perpetual herbage, and well suited, as the great wool export proves, for the breeding and depasturing of sheep. It is bare of timber, and,

for New Zealand, is, at present, rather a monotonous looking, ugly country, intersected by many rapid streams, difficult to ford when swollen – but, building timber and fencing stuff lie at hand in the forests of Banks' Peninsula, planting is being resorted to, farms and stock stations, squatter's homesteads and shepherd's huts, with their paddocks and patches of garden and corn-field, are dotted over it in every direction, flocks and herds are spreading from point to point, and it deservedly ranks as the most famous pastoral district in either Island and as the great domain of the "golden fleece."

"Christchurch, the capital of the Province, is on the banks of the Avon, about nine miles from Lyttelton by land, and two miles from the river Heathcote, where the steamers and small craft engaged in the carrying trade with Lyttelton, discharge and take in their cargoes. It contains now upwards of 5,000 inhabitants, and is large enough for a much greater number. Here, are the provincial government offices, the council chamber, the land and survey offices, and others, forming, together, an extensive range of buildings; here also are the supreme court, the immigration barracks, banks, and the club-house – one of the most handsome buildings in the town – the college, and the bishop's residence, &c., &c. All the merchants have offices and warehouses here; and there is a weekly market. There are also hotels, boarding houses, livery stables, stores, and shops of every description; lawyers, doctors, and other professions; two or three iron-foundries, to one of which is attached an agricultural implement manufactory; several breweries – most of them brewed very indifferent beer once, but it is said they are doing much better now; – a pottery, which promises to be a highly useful concern; large brick yards, several extensive nursery gardens, flour mills, both in the town and in the neighbourhood, saw mills, and other establishments. Three newspapers are published here – the "Press," daily; the "Lyttelton Times," tri-weekly; and the "Canterbury Standard," bi-weekly.

A cathedral is about to be commenced, the estimated cost of which is £20,000. A pleasing evidence both of the prosperity and public spirit of the people is supplied by the fact that no sooner was the project published and a committee organised to carry it out, than men of all shades of religious opinions came down with subscriptions, varying from £20 to £500, and within a month some £11,000 had been promised." 27

The physical difficulty, if we may so express it, of the Canterbury Province has been the connecting of the port-town of Lyttelton with Christchurch and the great interior plains. This difficulty, however, has been much lessened by the introduction of small steamers plying from Lyttelton harbour up the river Avon to within a couple of miles of Christchurch, and will, ere long, be entirely overcome by the completion of a short railroad from Christchurch to Lyttelton tunnelled through the harbour hills, when the great wool country of the interior will lie open to the port.

The principal small Settlements of the Canterbury Province are Kaiapoi, (a rising place ten miles from Christchurch on the banks of the Courtenay) Rangiora, Harewood, Lincoln, Ashburton, Golden Hokitiki on the west coast, and Timaru on the south-east; together with Akaroa, Port Levy, and Pigeon Bay, in Banks' Peninsula. Akaroa, originally a small French Settlement, abandoned by the French when New Zealand became a British Colony, is one of the finest harbours in New Zealand; and these little peninsulated Settlements, all possessing excellent ports, and all lying within three or four hours' run of the provincial metropolis, will soon, we think, become thriving little communities busily engaged in supplying fish, fruits, vegetables, and firewood for the shipping and town of Lyttelton, and fence-stuff and building timber for the Shepherd Princes of the Plains.

LAND REGULATIONS. – Country land is surveyed in lots of not less than 20 acres, and sold at the fixed price of 40s. an acre. No civilian or naval or military grants are made, except to old soldiers leaving the service or discharged through wounds received in the Russian war, or to the wives of soldiers made widows by the Russian war, who are allowed free grants of 30 acres.

"Assisted Passages," are given to good labourers, mechanics, and domestic servants – the particulars of which may be obtained from us.

OTAGO.

This fine, and now far-famed, auriferous Province, bounded on the north by Canterbury, has an extreme length of 200 miles, a breadth, east and west, at the broadest part, of 200 miles, a coast line of 400, and an area of 17 millions of acres, nearly equal to that of the whole of Scotland. The Colonist population, including diggers, approaches 50,000, the Native does not exceed 500 or 600.

The west-coast portion of this broad territory, like that of Canterbury and Nelson, consists mainly of a rugged, forest-smothered, Alpine, country, offering little or no land for plough or fleece; but the eastern and more central portions contain many well-wooded, well-watered, agricultural and pastoral districts of great fertility, where several flourishing villages and townships are rising up; and there is perhaps no province in New Zealand which will eventually appear in the markets with greater quantities of corn and wool

In these days, however, Otago is chiefly remarkable for her gold fields. Discovered in June, 1861, they soon drew over thousands of diggers and their followers from Victoria; and up to the present time have yielded gold to the value of about £8,000,000.

Dunedin, the capital of the Province, lying in

latitude 45 3/4 deg., at the the head of a beautiful loch-like harbour, 28 200 miles by sea from Lyttelton, and 150 from Invercargill, was planted by an association of members of the Free Kirk of Scotland, headed by Captain John Cargill, and a body of hardy Scotch pioneers, in 1848. Owing to auriferous attractions it sprang, almost in a day, from a village into a bustling town, now numbering over 15,000 people, and, should the Diggings continue to flourish, Dunedin, in a few years, may become "New Zealand's Melbourne," counting her 50,000 citizens, and exporting her tons of gold.

NEW ZEALAND'S FIRST CRYSTAL PALACE. – As an indication of the spirit, enterprise, and rate of progress of our handful of countrymen at the antipodes, we cannot, perhaps, do better than include in our brief sketch of the great Gold Province of the Country the following description of New Zealand's first "Great Exhibition," held at Dunedin in the year 1865: –

"It having been generally felt that the period had arrived for the holding of an Exhibition of the Industrial Arts of New Zealand, as the most fitting exponent of its rapid progress as a Colony, a number of gentlemen, whose names are intimately associated with its welfare, were nominated as Commissioners by his Excellency the Governor, on the part of her Majesty the Queen, to carry out the purpose in view. It was determined by the Commissioners that the Exhibition should be held in Dunedin; and after some little delay, consequent upon the choice of a suitable site for the building, it was at length resolved that it should be erected near to the centre of Great King Street. The Architect of the building was Mr. William Mason, first Mayor of Dunedin, and the design was a very handsome example of the Etruscan style of architecture. The total cost, including site, &c., was £25,000. In consequence of the inability of the Governor to be present, a Special Commission from him was sent to his Honor John Hyde Harris, the Superintendent of Otago, empowering him to open the Exhibition in the name of Her Majesty. The Exhibition was accordingly opened on the 12th January, in presence of a very large and gay assemblage, drawn from all parts of the Colony. The Hon. Major Richardson, Postmaster General of New Zealand, read, on the part of him-

self and the other Commissioners, an eloquent address, illustrative of the objects, and of the good expected to result from the Exhibition. His Honor the Superintendent made a suitable reply as delegate for the Governor, and declared the first Exhibition in New Zealand duly opened. Throughout, it was visited by many thousands of people, all of whom expressed their delight. All the available space was speedily allotted to the numerous exhibitors; and as an evidence of the spirited manner in which exhibitors of native industrial art came forward, we may mention, that the various Provinces of the Colony, contributed as follows: –

Otago

Exhibits, 561

Auckland

" 83

Hawke's Bay

" 67

Taranaki

" 1

Wellington

68

Nelson

" 27

Marlborough

" 1

Canterbury

" 67

Southland

" 14

890

Besides these too, there were many exhibits in the various wools and cereals of the Colony; while there were numerous exhibits from New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, and Tasmania, Great Britain, Canada, France, and Germany.

In the Fine Arts department, there were exhibited upwards of 400 paintings, etchings, engravings, chromo-lithographs, medallions, &c., &c., but these were almost entirely the product of foreign art. The few paintings exhibited by artists in the Provinces were as fair specimens of the progress of this branch of art as could be expected, but there was a total absence of sculpture. The architectural drawings, representing buildings already erected or to be erected in the Colony, drew a good deal of attention.

Great expectations were formed throughout the Colony relative to the success of the Exhibition, many alleging that it was much too soon for one; but we think, on the whole, that it has been amply proved that it was not so, and that both in the Mother Country and elsewhere, Otago will be congratulated on the success which has attended this her first Palace of Art.

In every department, exhibits were displayed illustrative of Foreign and Colonial ingenuity, and especially so was this the case as regards several new and clever contrivances for the procuring of Gold. Of these, perhaps those which commanded the chief attention were the model of sluicing boxes (since patented), the clever invention of a Mr. Argles of Wetherstones, a thoroughly practical miner; the model of a self-acting dredging machine, to be worked in dredging river beds for gold, the

invention of Mr. William Ward of Dunedin; two models of a river screw, to supersede undershot wheels, the invention of Mr. William Paton of Dunedin; the model of a windlass, made to work rope of any length without chocking the barrel of the same, and a boring tool for enlarging the cavity at bottom of bore.

Several very interesting specimens of the Phormium tenax, or New Zealand flax, were also exhibited in a prepared state; and while it cannot yet be said that any invention has been hit upon by which thoroughly to extract the gum therefrom, this Exhibition, and the impetus given by it to further Colonial inventions, will, we hope, lead to this great natural staple of New Zealand being turned to good commercial account. Wool washing and pressing machines, the invention of colonists, were also exhibited. In Cereal exhibits, there were numerous fine specimens from the Provinces of Otago, Southland, Canterbury, and Nelson. It is gratifying to announce, that the finest samples of wheat were those exhibited by Mr. Andrews, and Mr. Kirkland, of our East Taieri district: the sample exhibited by Mr. Andrews weighing 67 lbs. the bushel.

As shewing the mineral wealth of New Zealand, specimens of gold, copper, iron, coal, limestone, &c., &c., were sent from almost every Province. A fine Obelisk formed a chief attraction, representing the amount of gold exported from New Zealand up to 31st December, 1863, comprising 1,814,026 oz. Troy, or 103 cubic feet of solid gold, of the value of &pound; 6,250,000 sterling. There were also exhibited numerous specimens of stone for building purposes, with timber and ornamental woods.

The Exhibition was formally closed on 6th May, having thus being open nearly four months, during a part of which it was open in the evening by gas light. Several interesting selections of popular music were performed on stated days; and the Lyster Opera Troupe performed a select Opera, which was fully attended.

It is not too much to say, that considering the youth of the Colony this Exhibition of Industrial Art, so admirably carried out by the Commissioners, stands without a parallel in the history of the Australasian Colonies. The various useful inventions of the New Zealand Colonists, will, in their class, bear a comparison with those of the people of the mother country; and from the great impetus it has given to progress in all departments where skilled labour is necessary, we look forward to another Exhibition, as far surpassing the one we have just had, as the one in London of '62 surpassed the happy original of '61." – Mackay's Otago Almanack, 1866.

LAND REGULATIONS. – Country Land, sold at the fixed price of 20s. per acre, subject to an annual tax of 2s. an acre, terminating on an expenditure of 40s. an acre in cultivation and improvements; or, terminating on payment of an additional 20s. an acre. No "Free Grants" of any kind are made.

SOUTHLAND.

This Province, until 1861 a part of Otago, 29 may be described as a large compact slice of territory cut out from the south-central portion of Otago, and entirely surrounded by it except at the south, where little Southland has her 60 miles of frontage on Foveaux Strait, and her ports and settlements of Riverton, and Invercargill, and of Campbell Town, at the Bluff. The province is about twice the size of Northumberland, and numbers nearly 10,000 pioneer Settlers: the natives and half-castes counting about 400. Southland contains a large proportion of fine agricultural and grazing land, and there is perhaps, no part of the Colony where there is more good land lying contiguous to the port town.

Invercargill, the young capital of the province, well named after the late Captain Cargill, one of the sturdy, free-kirk, pilgrim fathers of Otago, in latitude 46 1/4 deg., is about 150 steamer-miles from Port Chalmers, and five days' smart run from Melbourne. It stands at the mouth of New River, capable of receiving steamers and vessels of moderate size – larger ships frequenting the great harbour of the Bluff about ten miles distant. Invercargill, with her suburbs, in these her infant days, may count nearly 3,000 inhabitants, has a well-conducted paper, or two, with three or four branch banks; and bids fair to become one of the most flourishing of all the smaller southern ports.

The climate along the coasts of Foveaux Strait is wet and boisterous, but dryer and more settled inland. Southland occupies, climatically, about the same relative position to the warmer North Island provinces as Yorkshire does to Devonshire; and in its southern districts the more delicate Australian Merino does not thrive so well as Leicester, Cotswold, or Down. But,

except for the old Indian, or the delicate or invalid emigrant, the climate of Southland would be found just as suitable and salubrious as that of any province of New Zealand.

The best Australian road to some of the Otago gold fields lies through this province, via Invercargill and Lake Wakatip; and looking at the large proportion of fine land which Southland possesses; at her central port of Invercargill, and at the near and noble harbour of the Bluff (the nearest settled harbour in New Zealand to the great antipodal mart and market of Melbourne) we should say, that as the great South Island of New Zealand becomes more widely known in Europe as an Emigration Field, no inconsiderable portion of that stream of capital and labour which will then set in to its southern portions will flow down to Foveaux Strait.

Stewart's Island, opposite Invercargill, about thirty miles across the Straits, will, eventually, perhaps, be colonised and attached to Southland as an Island County. Some little mixed communities of tens and twenties composed of old whalers, natives, and half-castes, are scattered about the bays. It is well wooded, and possesses some fertile little valleys, together with some good harbours – Port William and Paterson's Inlet being two of the finest, and the latter, one of the safest, in New Zealand.

LAND REGULATIONS. – Country Land is sold at a fixed price of £2 per acre. No "Free Grants," of any sort, are made.

COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE PROVINCES. – Several smart, well-found, steamers ply along the coasts, and keep up a constant communication between the various Provinces and their several ports; while a fleet of small craft is continually plying round the coasts, from Province to Province, and from trading-post to station. Thus, the New Zealand tourist, man of business, or emigrant-traveller (seeing a little of the country before

he chooses his location and invests his money), has seldom to wait more than a day or so in any one Settlement without finding means of prosecuting his journey to another.

TELEGRAPHS. – The Telegraph is now in operation from Invercargill through Dunedin, Canterbury, and Marlborough to Nelson. The wires, too, will soon be laid across Cook's Strait, when, in another year, or two, a message will be flashed through nearly 1000 miles of country from the Bay of Islands to the Bluff.

ROADS. – As yet. New Zealand's artificial roads are confined, for the most part, to circles of country surrounding the chief Settlements. A great central trunk road, has, however, been commenced at Auckland. It will be carried northward 150 miles to the Bay of Islands, and southward some 400 miles to Wellington, and when entirely finished will exhibit branch roads to each chief Settlement lying along the coast on either side. About forty miles of the northern, and forty of the southern portion of this main highway have been opened; and as both the General and Provincial Governments have a strong interest in this great work, we hope very few years will now elapse ere it is completed. Some considerable local roads have also been made in the various Provinces; whilst, by beach or by inland paths, plains, and passes, New Zealand is traversable, in a rough way, from north to south. From Auckland to New Plymouth, via Kawhia, there is a seven days' foot post-road, by the native villages and stations along the beach and cliffs; and from New Plymouth to Wellington through Wanganui, a somewhat similar eight days' road is found – practicable both for horse and foot. There is also a foot post-road by native paths and villages from Auckland to Hawkes' Bay, passing partly through that splendid Waikato country named at page 41.

Mr. Hursthouse tells us, that visitors and colonists "bush travelling" in New Zealand, generally provide themselves with a native attendant or two, as guides,

caterers, ferrymen, and companions; carry a couple of blankets, some tobacco, and a little tea, with a light gun for duck and pigeon; and, trusting to native villages for pork, poultry and potatoes, bivouac, well suppered, at night, before a rousing forest fire of a dozen trees. Twenty miles a-day is fair progress; and with a comrade or two, and a couple of native guides, New Zealand "Bush Travelling," he says, in variety of adventure, in scenery, in ludicrous mishaps, and robust enjoyment, alternated, though, by fits of intense disgust, beats hollow a Highland walking tour, and might sometimes test even the strength of Whymper and of all the active Athletes of the Alpine Club.

Land travelling in the South Island is generally performed on horseback. A visitor or exploring emigrant would now ride from Nelson to Christchurch through Marlborough in about eight days, and from Christchurch to Dunedin in about ten, stopping at some hospitable sheep or cattle station every night Bush inns, and here and there, by ferry and pass, the little nucleus of some gathering village, are beginning to dot the way; while, looking at the marvellous progress of New Zealand in the last ten years, glancing at the level, open, character of most of the east-coast country of the South Island, and remembering that Canterbury is already active in the field, we venture to predict that the day is not very remote when there will be cheap tram-railway communication through five hundred miles of grass country from Cook's Strait through the Wairau and the plains of Canterbury down to Otago and the great southern harbour of the Bluff.

20 It is now in contemplation to connect the Albertland Settlement with the Metropolis of the Province by making a light-draft Steamer Canal from the head waters of Auckland harbour to the head waters of the Kaipara: an enterprise quite within the means of the spirited Colonists of Auckland and one which would confer signal advantages on the whole of Auckland's Northern territory.

21 In the capital town of each of the nine Provinces there is a Public Land Office with maps and plans and books open to every comer needing information. Besides its general Country Land, each Province has its class of Pastoral Land and its Town and Suburban Land. The former is let on lease in large blocks for sheep and cattle grazing, at the rate of about 1d. per acre per annum: – but all the good pastoral land, except certain districts still in the hands of the Natives, is taken up. Town and Suburban Land is that forming the sites and suburbs of the new Townships rising up in all parts of the country, and this is generally laid off, the former, in lots of an acre or so, and the latter in lots of from 10 to 20 acres, a fixed published, price is attached to each, and it is then sold, at public advertised auction, to the highest bidder. Each Province, too, issues Timber and Mining Licenses on very easy terms.

22 The Crown title enabling the grantee to sell his grant is only issued at the end of the five years, when it is found that this condition has been complied with. Of course, Auckland does not give this land away with the view of enabling people to sell it on arrival, pocket the cash, and carry it off to some other colony or province. She wants to make resident colonists of those to whom she makes her free grants, and the condition of "four years' residence was framed only to promote this object. It should be clearly understood, however, that the breach of the condition vitiates only the grant for the person who commits it. If A. for himself and family, and for any servants or labourers he may have taken with him, gets, say eight 40-acre grants, and a son, C., and a labourer B., of the party are absent from the province for twelve months of the five years, A. only loses, and has to give up, the 80 acres he got for such son C., and labourer B.

23 The town or village-capital of the Province is now called New Plymouth, and the Province, itself, Taranaki.

24 Without taking into account Governor Browne's attempted purchase of the Waitara land – land which Governor Grey afterwards abandoned, but which some of the first authorities in New Zealand, and some of the natives, too, assert was fairly purchased – the New Plymouth Settlement may be said to have been bought and paid for three times over, namely – first, of the Waikato tribe, by Governor Hobson; secondly, of some of the Ngatiawa tribe, by Colonel Wakefield and the officers of the late New Zealand Company; thirdly (in part), of others of the Ngatiawa and of some of the Taranaki tribe, by Governors Fitzroy and Grey.

25 One of the largest and most substantial deep-water iron wharfs in the South Seas is being erected at a total cost of £60,000, to accommodate ships of the largest burthen. Besides this, a patent slip, capable of hauling up steamers of 2,000 tons burthen, is now in course of construction, to be erected in Evans's Bay, an inner harbour of Wellington, at a cost of £40,000.

26 The honour of being, or becoming, the real permanent capital of Marlborough seems, as yet, to be a point rather in dispute between Blenheim and Picton.

27 From an excellent little work on Canterbury, by Mr. Marshman, which readers, interested in learning everything about this part of New Zealand, and its advantages as an Emigration Field, would do well to procure. The price is 6d., and the publisher, Mr. Street, 30, Cornhill, London.

28 Coasting vessels and steamers come up to Dunedin, but large vessels lie at Port Chalmers, which may be called the "Lower Harbour" of Dunedin, about nine miles off.

29 Here, as in the like case of Marlborough and Nelson, we think the new, little Province would have done better to have remained an important portion of the old large one, instead of setting up for itself; and we observe with satisfaction certain indications of a desire on the part of the Southlanders to retrace their steps, and to merge themselves into the parent Province.

CHAPTER VI. POLITICAL AND PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS, &C. SOCIETY. AMUSEMENTS.

CHAPTER VI.

POLITICAL AND PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS, &C. SOCIETY. AMUSEMENTS.

GOVERNMENT. – By the Constitution conferred on. New Zealand in 1853, the country is governed in manner following: – The Crown appoints the Governor, and the five judges, and withdraws from the Colony's public revenue some £20,000 a-year for a civil list – giving £4,500 to the Governor, £8,000 among the Judges, and the remainder among the half dozen Colonial Ministers.

The general Government of the Colony is vested in the General Assembly, a body meeting in annual Parliamentary Session at Wellington (lately raised into the political capital of New Zealand), and which is composed of a Legislative Council consisting, as yet, of some 35 leading Colonists, chosen by the Governor for life; and of the House of Representatives, a body numbering in these early days, 70 members, elected by the people every five years: each member of the Assembly receiving £1 per diem, while the Houses are in session, as well as his travelling expenses in reaching, and returning from, the Assembly.

The Governor is aided and advised by a Ministry, composed of such officers as Colonial Secretary, who is the "Premier," Colonial Treasurer, Attorney-General, Defence-Minister, Native-Minister, and Postmaster-General, with salaries of about £1000 a-year. These Ministers are all members of the Legislative Council, or of the House of Representatives, and go out of office when they cease to command a majority in that House.

Every man owning a freehold worth £50, or being a tenant householder in the country at a rent of £6 per year, or in the town at £10 per year, is qualified both to vote for, or to be, a member of the House of Representatives.

Thus, the constitution of New Zealand bears a strong infantile resemblance to that of the Mother Country: – the Governor being the Queen, though taking a far more familiar, active, personal, part in State Affairs than does Royalty – the Legislative Councillors being the (Life) Peers – and the House of Representatives being the House of Commons; while, in each country, there is the Executive Ministry leaving the Loaves of Office when it fails to command the support of a majority of the People's Representatives.

Such has been New Zealand's form of Government for the last dozen years, and in practical adaptation to the wants of a young, high-class, colonial community, a very excellent form of Government it, on the whole, has proved itself to be. The late Native War, however, and the circumstance of the entire native population being in the North Island, have led many intelligent Colonists to advocate some change of Government like this, namely, that for a time a least, and while the Maori remains a "power" in the country. New Zealand should be separated into two Colonies: the North Island, with its capital at Auckland, and with a Government framed more with special view to the remnant of the Native Race – and the South Island, retaining the present Government, and with its capital planted at Christchurch. On the other hand, however, there is a large and most deservedly influential body of old Colonists, counting among them most of those great apxiyoi [Greek] who laid the foundations of the flourishing Settlements in Cook's Strait, whose cry runs – "Separation is Weakness – Unity, Strength;" who contend that the existing form of Government is capable of doing all which can be done to save the Maori; and that New Zealand had better remain as she is – one great, united, colony ruled by her three estates,

legislating from a New Zealand Westminster, seated at central Wellington.

For the purposes of Local Government, New Zealand, at present, is divided into nine large Provinces, namely, Auckland, Taranaki, Wellington, Hawkes' Bay, Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury, Otago, and Southland; and each of these, for local purposes, is governed by its Provincial Council, an admirable local parliament consisting of a chief officer called the Superintendent, and of from twenty to forty provincial councillors, chosen by the electors of the Province every four years. Each Provincial Council makes the local laws for its own Province, – such as those relating to the sale and management of the public wild lands, to immigration, to roads, rates, public works and institutions, and to all municipal matters; but every "provincial-council Act" has to receive the assent of the General Government before it becomes law.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. – The civil and criminal law is the same as in England. For judicial purposes the Colony is divided into districts, each, we may say, judicially presided over by one of the judges who holds an assize in the chief town of each Province of his district for the jury trial of any civil or criminal cases which may prove beyond the jurisdiction of the inferior civil and criminal courts, and of the police magistrate.

PUBLIC REVENUE, EXPENDITURE, AND DEBT. – Having unfortunately mislaid our New Zealand Chancellor of the Exchequer's last budget, we cannot describe the present financial position of the Colony with that exactitude which we have endeavoured to observe in treating of every other topic of our little work – but, with the materials we possess, we do the best we can. Thus, we would say that the public Revenue of the General Government of New Zealand amounts, even in these early days, to nearly £1,000,000, of which sum about £800,000 is made up by customs duties on imported articles, and £200,000 by various miscella-

neous items; and this respectable Revenue seems to be expended in somewhat the following manner: –

£

1.

Civil List

20,000

2.

Executive Legislative and Judicial department.

30,000

3.

Miscellaneous

50,000

4.

Native Department

70,000

5.

Internal Defence Department

100,000

6.

Postal Department including Mail Steamer contracts

130,000

7.

Interest on Public Debt

200,000

8.

Portion of the Customs Duties raised in each Province returned to the Provinces in aid of their local expenditure

400,000

£1,000,000

This Revenue of a million is called the "Ordinary" Revenue, and is dealt with, as above, by the General Government of the Colony; but, in addition to this "Ordinary" Revenue, there is what is called the "Territorial" Revenue, made up of the annual sale and leasing of the wild lands of the Colony, of gold duty, and gold licenses, &c. This Revenue, amounting in 1864, to £700,000, is dealt with as "Local" Revenue, and is expended by the nine Provincial Governments on local, Provincial wants.,

The Public Debt of New Zealand – contracted partly by the nine Provincial Governments for public works, partly by the General Government for "Native War" purposes – amounts to a very considerable sum, and the interest on it makes a serious pull on the young Colony's Exchequer. With the Native War substantially over, however, as we may hope it is, and with increasing exports of Gold and the Golden Fleece, New Zealand's Public Debt is one she may soon pay off. A large portion of her war debt was created for her by the "meddling and muddling" of the Home Government, and, in national equity and fair dealing, ought, undoubtedly, to be paid by that body; while, in justification of the loans she has raised for public works, it may truly be said that, in a young wool-and-gold-colony like New Zealand, the borrowing of a million or

two for the introduction of Labour, and for roads, bridges, and public works, is but the borrowing of pick and spade to dig up the goodly nugget.

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS. – The Imports, amounting in 1864 to £7,000,000, 30 consist of British manufactures, and of such produce as tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, wines, spirits, beer, &c., &c., imported, for the most part, direct from London, but partly through Australian and other markets. The present annual exports of the Colony, which have actually more than doubled themselves in the last four years now amount to about £4,000,000, and consist chiefly of wool and gold, shipped direct to London, and of such (as yet) smaller items as timber, spars, flax, oils, ores, exported mainly to England and Australia.

RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS. – Though there is no State Church in New Zealand there is, nevertheless, a very-flourishing little church establishment comprising six bishops, various archdeacons, and a corresponding body of the lower clergy, supported by societies existing at home for the extension of the Colonial Church, by lands set apart in various of the Settlements for church purposes, by gifts and bequests of wealthy churchmen, and by congregational contributions.

The Wesleyans are also a numerous and influential body, and maintain a most useful missionary establishment among the natives. The Free Kirk of Scotland is prominently represented in Otago, Roman Catholics have erected chapels in most of the principal towns, and the Baptists have established a Nonconformist Settlement at Albertland; while, as an instance of the liberality prevailing in New Zealand with respect to religion, and of the absence of that bitter sectarian feeling which has too often disgraced Christianity at home, we may mention that the authorities of Canterbury, a Settlement long unjustly reputed to be

a bigoted exclusive High Church Settlement, have given school and chapel land to the Dissenting members of their flourishing community.

NEW ZEALAND'S ARMY. – Though New Zealand has no horse guards, and talks no "pipe clay," necessity has compelled her to organize an effective "Colonial Force," consisting of some dozen batallions of Militia and of several corps of Rifle Volunteers and Forest Rangers, numbering altogether, of effective fighting men, about 5,000. The poor successes of our soldiers, against the rebel Natives, coupled with certain dashing enterprises of the Colonial Force, have led "paper critics" to imagine that the Red Coats cost far more than they are worth in New Zealand, and should be withdrawn, to make room for better men. This, however, would be a gross injustice to our gallant troops. Men and officers, alike, have fought most bravely in New Zealand; and their scanty laurels are owing to no want of bull-dog pluck on their part, but to a generalship inspired by Exeter Hall, and to the amazing difficulty of "getting at" the enemy, hidden, as he mostly is, in his rifle pits and tangled bush covers. No finer fighting force ever marched against foe in a wild country than one would be composed of equal numbers of British troops and of New Zealand Militia and Rifle Rangers: each supplies exactly what the other needs – the Regular has the steadiness and discipline, the Irregular the dash and woodcraft; and it is to be hoped that the Imperial Government will ever make New Zealand a Station for three or four regiments until the time arrives when all the Native Tribes shall be satisfied that the Plough is the best weapon to save them. 31

SCHOOLS. – The various Provinces have appropriated many thousand pounds of their annual public revenues to the endowment and support of Grammar and Free Schools. These, with the Church and Wesleyan colleges at Auckland, the private commercial academies and ladies' seminaries, and the flourishing Sunday schools of various religious bodies, afford means of secular and religious training; and there is, perhaps, no colonial community in the world where a good plain education for young people can now be obtained at a cheaper rate than in New Zealand.

THE PRESS. – The fourth estate is well represented, the Colonists supporting a score or two of weekly and bi-weekly papers, besides one or two little periodicals. The press is conducted with considerable vigour and ability; and now and then the leader of one of the crack journals would not discredit even the Leviathan of London.

SOCIETY. – "Whatever may have been the defects of that Wakefield System of Colonisation on which New Zealand was settled, the system did at least do this – it drew over a much higher class of emigrants to the Colony than any which had ever left the Mother Country since the Puritan towns of Massachusetts and the Cavalier Settlements of Virginia were founded; and selected its free and assisted passage emigrants so carefully, that almost every mechanic and labourer carried to New Zealand has been a picked man. Petres, Staffords, Pier points, Molesworths, Cliffords, Dillons, Tancreds, Tollemaches, Congreves, Welds, Wortleys, Vavasours, Cholmondeleys, scions of many any old English family, have settled in New Zealand. Retired professional men turned agriculturists, 'vieux moustache' of the Line or Indian service, grown cunning in wool; enterprizing

younger sons who have had the good sense to abandon Regent Street and the life of the clubs; quiet rural families, with broods of sons and daughters, most of them living on and creating their little estates; with a considerable sprinkling of black coats, scarlet coats, government officials, and the mercantile classes, constitute half the present pioneering population of the country. No stranger, I think, would now visit the Colony without being agreeably surprised at the high, if homely, tone of society, and forcibly struck with the steady, industrious character of all orders of the young community. Indeed, for friendliness of feeling, pleasantness of intercourse, intellectual and moral endowments, I should say that the social circles of New Zealand would generally be found equal to those which the emigrant family might have left in England. Crime, too, we must recollect, is all but non-existent; while the republican licence so offensive to the Englishman in America, and the convict taint, which still reveals itself through a large portion of Australia, are alike unknown." – Hursthouse's "Britain of the South."

AMUSEMENTS. – "The New Zealand community being a young, hard-working, well-to-do community, and free from those carking cares arising in England from the difficulty of planting out families, from excess of competition, and from those other causes which, there, so often bring the crow's feet and furrow the brow, can afford to take and enjoy a holiday, and does so pretty often. Drawing-room, Lord Mayor's Show and Mail-clad Warriors, Italian Opera, Almack's, Pall Mall Club, and pompous Dinner, where a dozen heavy men in solemn mourning meet to devour more than they can digest and to muddle themselves with curious wines and liqueurs rare, are, as yet, things unknown in New Zealand. But there is a great deal of homely, help-yourself hospitality, with plenty of tea-drinkings, dance-parties, and pic-nics. In a few years, too, thanks to Acclimatisation Societies and public benefactors who have introduced some of our finest game, New Zealand

may offer us shooting second to but few countries in the world. Even now there is race, race ball, and regatta, concert, theatre, lecture, cricket match, and agricultural show; and the Colonists, none of them tooth-picking loungers, all of them actively engaged in some pursuit or other, many in the pleasing and profitable pursuit of creating little landed estate for themselves, and theirs to inherit it, find quite as many relaxations, sports, pastimes, and amusements in New Zealand as they have time or inclination to attend to." – Hursthouse's "Britain of the South"

30 This great Importation was caused in part by the requirements of the "Troops." The present "Colonist" Importation of articles does not probably much exceed £5,000,000; and perhaps no better proof of the "well-to-do" circumstances of New Zealand's little community could be adduced than that a handful of 200,000 people should be able to consume and pay for imports to this large amount.

31 "The duty of protecting and defending property is a duty devolving on the owners of it – now, the chief owners of New Zealand are not the handful of pioneer colonists who have led the way into the country, but the thirty millions of people constituting the British Nation who, in New Zealand, have a great national estate and one of their finest emigration fields; and, most undoubtedly, in national equity, it is the duty of the Imperial Government to contribute military assistance to New Zealand while military assistance is needed there. But, quite apart from considerations of this nature, and quite independently of the Natives, there are sound imperial reasons why New Zealand. should always be a military station. Our costly regiments most be somewhere, and, in New Zealand they would be in a country where, as we see by Dr. Thomson's excellent tables, they would be signally healthy – there, too, they would be close to our Australian and Indian Possessions, to China and Japan, at hand when wanted; while in New Zealand the men (like our old friends of the 58th) would get plenty of employment at good pay on the colony's public works, and thus be saved from that idle, lounging, 'porter-swilling,' barrack, life which an eminent judge has denounced as the great curse of the British soldier's Career." – "The New Zealand War," by C. Hursthouse.

CHAPTER VII. STATISTICAL AND GENERAL INFORMATION

CHAPTER VII.

STATISTICAL AND GENERAL INFORMATION, &C, &C.

The General Statistics of New Zealand are published by the New Zealand Government in a most useful "Blue Book" every third year – but, in a young and growing Colony like New Zealand where the "change and progress" is almost as great in twelve months, as, in some old, grown, countries, it is in twelve years, such "Blue Book" might, we think, be very advantageously published every year.

Table showing the progress made by New Zealand in the last four years – notwithstanding, that during this period half the colony (the North Island) was paralysed by a "Native War."

Year ending
December, 1861.

Year ending
December, 1865
(Estimated.)

Colonist Population

100,000

190,000

Number of Sheep

2,700,000

5,700,000

Number of Cattle

190,000

280,000

Number of "fenced" Acres,
chiefly in Grass or Corn

400,000

1, 300,000

Value of Imports
(chiefly British manufactures,
and goods and produce
shipped from England).

£2,500,000

£5,000,000

Value of Exports (chiefly Wool and Gold)
shipped to England

£1,500,000

£4,000,000

Estimated Colonist Population, with Agricultural and Pastoral Statistics, of the Nine Provinces on the 1st January, 1866.

Province.

Population.

Acres "Fenced:"
chiefly in
grass or
crop.

Sheep.

Cattle.

Horses.

Auckland

50,000

160,000

90,000

45,000

9, 600

New Plymouth

5,000

10,000

10,000

5,000

900

Hawkes' Bay

4,000

80,000

600,000

16,000

3, 500

Wellington

17,000

150,000

460,000

53,000

9,500

Nelson

14,000

110,000

400,000

18,000

4,500

Marlborough

6,000

110,000

500,000

10,000

3,500

Canterbury

35,000

390,000

1,800,000

48,000

13,500

Otago

50,000

210,000

1,560,000

60,000

14,500

Southland

9,000

80,000

280,000

15,000

3,500

Totals

190,000 1

1,300,000

5,700,000

270,000

63,000

1   About 2 Females to 3 Males. In addition to this Colonist Population there are 3 or 4 Regiments of Troops and their families, numbering about 5,000 souls more.

Estimated "Nationalities" of New Zealand's present pioneering Colonist Population.

In each 100, there are of English born people...... 35
" " New Zealand " ...... 30
" " Scotch " ...... 16
" " Irish " ...... 8
" " Welsh " ...... 1
" " Australian " ...... 5
" " Nova Scotians, Cape Colony people, Americans, French, German and other Foreigners.....5
[TOTAL] 100

Marriages, Births, Deaths. – In the year 1863, when the Population was about 175,000, there were 1,500 Marriages, 5,100 Births, 1,900 Deaths.

Number of Vessels entering the Ports of New Zealand in the year 1863 – 1,250 – tonnage, 420,000 tons.

Letters received and despatched in the year 1864...... 4,200,000
Newspapers " " ...... 4, 300,000

Quantity of Wild Land sold under the Land Regulations described in Chapter V. by the Nine Provincial Governments in the year 1864: Town Lots 650 acres – Suburban Lots 6,000 acres-Country Land 700,000 acres: total sum received for Land Sales in 1864 £600,000. Land granted away in Free Grants, from 1856 to 1864, 300,000 acres.

Retail Shop Prices, varying in the different Provinces; but, on the average about as follows: –

Bread.... 3d. to 3 1/2d. per lb.
Beef and Mutton.. 7d. to 8d. "
Pork.....5d. to 6d. "
Butter (fresh)... 2s. 0d. to 2s. 6d. "

Milk .... 5d. to 6d. per quart
Tea......3 0 per lb.
Coffee.....1 6 "
Sugar.....0 6 "
Cheese.....1 5 "
Salt......0 1 1/2 "
Rice......0 4 "
Tobacco.....6 0 "
Brandy; .....25 0 per gallon
"Wine " .... 20 0 "
Firewood.....10 0 per cord 32
Coals.....30 0 per ton

Vegetables are about the same price as at home. Fruit, except peaches and melons, is, as yet, scarce and dear.

Clothing, Hardware, Soft Goods, and most British manufactures, purchased at the counter, are on the average, from a third to a fourth dearer than in the Mother Country. The clothing worn, however, being of a plainer, more homely sort, the actual outlay of a family for apparel in New Zealand is, probably, no greater than in England.

RENTS. – Except for the first month or two, and in two on three of the larger towns, houses are not generally rented, most families soon getting to live in their own. But rents, generally, are full twice as high as in England, – two-room cottages letting at from 10s. to 12s. a-week, and four room at from 20s. to 30s.

EXPENSES OF LIVING. – Remembering that most people in New Zealand live, or soon may live, on their own little freeholds, where fall half of one's table, and most of one's fuel may be obtained from the land, and that groceries and other things may frequently be bought very cheap at merchants' auction sales, where two or three neighbours will join and buy bags of sugar, chests of tea, &c., it may certainly be said that the actual cash outgoings for living are, in the end, quite as little in New Zealand as in England, and sometimes less.

WAGES.
(Without Rations.)

Farm Labourers

5s. to 6s per day.

Good Carpenters, Masons, Plasterers, Plumbers, Wheelwrights, Shipwrights, Blacksmiths (8 hours per day)

9s., 10s. & 12s.

Handy Jack-of-all-trades men

6s. to 7s. "

N. B. – There is plenty of work at high wages for Boys and Girls of 14 years of age and upwards.

(With Rations, or Living in the House.)

Farm Labourer, Shepherd, or handy man as rough Gardener, Groom, and general help (according to usefulness, character, and qualifications)

£30 to £40 per year.

Married ditto (the wife acting as general domestic)

£50 to £70 "

Good Domestic Servants

£20 to £30 "

CURRENCY AND BANKS. – The currency is exactly the same as in England, each coin bears the same positive and relative value. The Bank of New Zealand, 50, Old Broad Street; 33 and the Union Bank of Australia, 38, Old Broad Street, London, are the two chief London-New Zealand Banks. They have branches in all the chief Settlements of the Colony, and issue letters of credit thereon; they also collect bills, remit monies (at either end), and transact all sorts of monetary business between the Colony and the Mother Country. The rate of interest allowed by the Banks in New Zealand on deposits for fixed periods of six months is about £5 per cent.; for periods of twelve months and longer about £6 per cent.

THE TARIFF.
Customs Duties chargeable under the "New Customs Duties Act, 1864," in all Ports of New Zealand.

1.

Ale, beer, cider, and perry in wood.....per gallon

.0..9

Do. do. in bottles...... do.

1 6

2.

Cigars and snuff......... per lb.

4 6

3.

Coffee, chicory, cocoa, and chocolate........ do.

0 3

4.

Cutlery, hardware, plated ware, hollowware, ironmongery of all sorts, and candles and soap of all sorts......... per cwt.

4 0

5.

Firearms 2 of every description........ each

5 0

6.

Gunpowder ......... per lb.

0 3

2   Importation of arms, &c., without license, is a misdemeanour, punishable by fine or imprisonment.

7.

Manufactures 3 of silk, cotton, linen, and all articles manufactured therefrom; drapery, haberdashery, hosiery, millinery, furs, hats, boots, shoes, confectionery, bottled fruits, dried fruits, mustard, olive oil, pickles, spices, sauces, preserves, and oilmen's stores of all kinds [measuring outside the packages] ........per cubic foot

..5..0

8.

Spirits 4 and strong waters of every kind, sweetened or otherwise, of any strength not exceeding the strength of proof by Sykes's hydrometer, and so on in proportion for any greater strength than the strength of proof ......... per gallon

12 0

9.

Sugar (raw and refined) of all kinds, and treacle and molasses ......... per lb.

0 1

10.

Tea .......... do.

0 6

11.

Tobacco .............. do.

2 6

12.

Wine in wood, containing less than 25 per cent, of alcohol of a specific gravity of 825 at a temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit's thermometer ....... per gallon

4 0

18.

Wine in bottle ..... do. do. do.

5 0

3   A manufacture composed of any of the articles comprised in Section 7, and in which gutta-percha is used merely to make it waterproof, is chargeable with 5s. per cubic foot.

4   Orange bitters, cherry and ginger cordials, &c., are liable to duty at 12s. per gallon. But if the importer make a declaration, and the collector certify that these goods do not contain more than 10 per cent, of spirit, they may, upon application to the Commissioner of Customs, be admitted at. 5s. per cubic foot.

Duty Free.

14. Anchors and chains, and rod, bolt, bar, sheet, hoop, and pig iron and nails, sail-cloth, cordage, twine, cotton, yarn, bags, sacks, and wool packs, spirits of tar and turpentine, tobacco for sheep-wash, nuts of all kinds, powder (fit only for blasting purposes), and all unenumerated goods, wares and merchandise.

POSTAL REGULATIONS. – Hitherto, the Mail Service between England and New Zealand has been wholly, and we must add, badly, performed by the Indian Steamers of the P. & O. Company, leaving Southampton on the 21st and Marseilles on the 28th of each month, by way of the Red Sea, Galle, and Melbourne, the course of post being from 65 to 70 days. Now, however, an additional monthly service, direct between England and New Zealand, has been established by the "Panama, New Zealand, and Australian Royal Mail Company," in conjunction

with the West Indian Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, whose steamers leave Southampton on the 2nd of every month for New Zealand, via St. Thomas, Panama, and the South Pacific, and whose contract-time for the delivery of the mails at Wellington is only 49 days. 34

The following is the official circular lately issued by the General Post Office respecting this new Panama Postal Line; and undoubtedly the New Zealand letter-writing public of this country will largely avail themselves of a new service which, there and back, actually shortens the course of post to New Zealand by more than a whole month: –

MAILS FOR NEW ZEALAND AND THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES VIA PANAMA.

The Government of New Zealand have entered into a contract with the Panama, New Zealand, and Australian Royal Mail Company for a Monthly Mail Service by Steam Vessels from Panama to Wellington (New Zealand) with branch services to the other ports of New Zealand, as well as to Sydney and Melbourne. These vessels are appointed to sail from Panama on the 24th of every month, after the arrival of the Mails despatched from England by the West India Mail Packets of the 2nd of the month from Southampton. The New Zealand Mails will accordingly be made up at the London Office at 8 o'clock in the MORNINGS 35 of the 2nd of every month, for transmission by the new Panama Line of Mail Packets. When, however, the 2nd of the month falls on Sunday, the Mails will be made up on the morning of the 3rd. The following are the rates of postage upon the correspondence so forwarded, and these rates must be prepaid: – with "via Panama" marked on the envelope, newspaper, or cover – otherwise, they will be sent by the old, roundabout, route of the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Galle, and Melbourne.

RATES OF POSTAGE.

LETTERS.

Not exceeding
1/2 oz.
in weight.

Above 1/2 oz.
and not
exceeding
1 oz.

Above 1 oz.
and not
exceeding
2 ozs

Above 2 ozs.
and not
exceeding
3 ozs

Every
additional
oz.

s. d.

s. d.

s. d.

s. d.

s. d.

1 0

2 0

4 0

6 0

2 0

NEWSPAPERS, BOOK PACKETS AND PATTERNS.

NEWSPAPERS, BOOK PACKETS AND PATTERNS.

CHIEF OFFICERS OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT OF NEW ZEALAND.

Governor, Commander-in-Chief and Vice-Admiral .... His Excellency Sir Geo. Grey, K. C. B
Premier and Colonial Secretary (also temporarily acting as Colonial Treasurer, Postmaster-General and Minister of Customs) ........Hon. E. W. Stafford.
Attorney-General .......Hon. J. Prendergast.
Defence Minister ........ Hon. Col. Haultain.
Native Minister........ Hon. Col. Russell.
Auditor-General ........ Chas. Knight, Esq., M. D.
Chief Land Commissioner ....... Alfred Domett, Esq.
Registrar-Genera I.......... J. B. Bennett, Esq., M. D.

MEMBERS OF NEW ZEALAND'S "LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL."
(Life Peers.)

Hon. John Barton Arundel Ackland ............ of Canterbury.
Hon. Sir George Alfred Arney..................... of Auckland.
Hon. William Douglas Hall Baillie............... of Marlborough,
Hon. Thomas Houghton Bartley.................. of Auckland.
Hon. Andrew Buchanan.............................. of Otago.

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL – (Continued).

Hon. Henry Joseph Coote........................... of Wellington.
Hon. James Coutts Crawford ..................... of Wellington.
Hon. George Cutfield................................. of Taranaki.
Hon. John Anderson Gilfillan ..................... of Auckland.
Eon. John Hall ....................................... of Canterbury.
Hon. John Johnston ................................. of Wellington.
Hon, William Henry Kenny........................ of Auckland.
Hon. James Du Pre Lance ........................ of Canterbury.
Hon. George Leslie Lee.............................. of Canterbury.
Hon. James Menzies ................................. of Southland,
Hon, Henry John Miller ........................... of Otago.
Hon, Francis Scott Pillans ........................ of Otago.
Hon. Daniel Pollen.................................... of Auckland.
Hon. James Prendergast ........................... of Otago.
Hon. Thomas Renwick .............................. of Nelson.
Hon. Matthew Richmond, C. B...................... of Nelson.
Hon. James Crowe Richmond ..................... of Nelson.
Hon. James Rolland ................................. of Otago.
Hon. Andrew Hamilton Russell .................. of Hawkes Bay,
Hon. John. Charles Watts Russell ............... of Canterbury.
Hon. Henry Russell ................................. of Hawkes Bay.
Hon. John Salmon.................................... of Auckland.
Hon. Arthur Penrose Seymour ................. of Marlborough,
Hon. Robert Stokes ................................. of Wellington,
Hon. Alfred Roland Chetham Strode ............ of Otago.
Hon. William Swainson.............................. of Auckland.
Hon, Henry John Tancred ...................... of Canterbury.
Hon. John Parkin Taylor ........................... of Southland.
Hon. Henry Walton ................................. of Auckland.
Hon. George Stoddart Whitmore................. of Hawkes Bay,

SPEAKER – Hon. T. H. Bartley. CLERK – Leonard Stowe, Esq.

MEMBERS OF NEW ZEALAND'S HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
(M. P. s)

We regret that we cannot here give a list of the present Hon. Members of New Zealand's young House of Commons, the general election not being over at the date of our last despatches from the Colony. Their number, in these early days, is 70; and at present they are sent to the House by the nine provinces in the following proportion: –

Auckland .................. 15
Taranaki .................. 3
Hawkes Bay............... 2
Wellington ............... 9
North Island........... 29
Nelson ..................... 6
Marlborough............... 3
Canterbury ............... 13
Otago....................... 15
Southland.................. 4
South Island.............. 41

SUPERINTENDENTS (Lieut.-Governors) OF THE NINE PROVINCES.

Auckland.................. His Honor Robert Graham.
Taranaki .................. His Honor Charles Brown.
Hawkes Bay.............. His Honor Donald Mac Lean.
Wellington ............... His Honor Isaac Earl Featherston.
Nelson ..................... His Honor Alfred Saunders.
Marlborough ............ His Honor Thomas Carter.
Canterbury ............... His Honor Samuel Bealey.
Otago ..................... His Honor Thomas Dick.
Southland.................. His Honor J. A. R. Menzies.

Judges of the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Sir George Alfred Arney

Auckland and Taranaki District.

Mr. Justice Johnson

Wellington, Nelson, and Napier District.

Mr. Justice Gresson

Christchurch & Hokitiki District.

Mr. Justice Richmond
Mr. Justice Chapman

Dunedin & Invercargill District.

BISHOPS.

Metropolitan Bishop of New Zealand...... G. A. Selwyn.
Bishopric of Wellington........... C. J. Abraham.
" Nelson ..................... A. B. Suter.
" Christchurch............... H. C. Harper.
" Waiapu .................... W. Williams.
" Otago...................... H. L. Jenner.

DISTANCE TABLE
(By Weekly Intercolonial Steamers.)

FROM

To
Taranaki

To
Nelson

To
Wellington

To
Canterbury

To
Otago

To
Southland

Miles

Miles.

Miles.

Miles.

Miles.

Miles.

Auckland (Manukau)

150

300

320

600

700

850

New Plymouth

–

150

180

350

550

700

Nelson

150

–

140

300

500

650

Wellington

180

140

–

180

380

630

Canterbury

350

300

180

–

200

350

Otago

550

500

380

200

–

150

N. B. – From Wellington to Napier (Hawke's Bay) 210 Miles; from Wellington to Picton (Marlborough) 50 miles; from Auckland (by East Coast) to Napier, 370 miles.

32 A cord of firewood is 4 feet broad, 3 feet deep, and 8 feet long, being 128 cubic feet.

33 This must not be confounded with a late bank called the "New Zealand Bank," a young concern called into premature existence by the great success of the old banks, and one which has lately been "wound up."

34 The following is the "Time Arrangement" of this Service. The Mail Steamer
OUTWARD.
Leaves Southampton on or about the 2nd of mth.
Arrives at St. Thomas, 17th "
Leaves " 18th "
Arrives at Colon 22nd "
Leaves Panama 24th "
Arrives at Wellington 21st "
Leaves " 22nd "
Arrives at Sydney 29th "
Time to Wellington, 49 days.
Time to Sydney, 57 "

HOMEWARD.
Leaves Sydney on or about 31st or lst of mth.
Arrives at Wellington 7th "
Leaves " 8th "
Arrives at Panama 5th "
Leaves Colon, via Jamaica and Hait 7th
Arrives at St. Thomas 13th "
Leaves " 15th "
Arrives at Southampton 29th "
Time from Wellington, 61 days.
Time from Sydney, 59 "

35 Virtually, therefore, letters must be posted on the 1st of the month, so as to be at the General Post Office in time for the making up of the bags on the morning of the 2nd.

CHAPTER VIII. HOW TO GET TO NEW ZEALAND.

CHAPTER VIII.

HOW TO GET TO NEW ZEALAND.

THE VOYAGE. – Clipper ships, favoured with fair breezes, now frequently make the run to New Zealand in 80 days; but the average passage is 100. If the vessel be not driven from her course by adverse winds, she will sail near the track marked on the accompanying map, a distance of about 14,000 English Miles. This marine journey may be said to consist of four stages – the first, from Gravesend to the Cape de Verds, which are generally sighted – the second, from the de Verds to Tristan d'Acuna, where, at a distance off of about 500 miles, the vessel is rounding the Cape of Good Hope – the third, from d'Acuna to where she is passing southwards of St. Paul's – the fourth, from that longitude to her journey's end.

Our lady readers, glancing at the map track, might fancy that all the way from Portugal to the Cape it would be nicer and nearer to sail more in-shore. It is not only safer, however, to keep away from land, but by so doing better winds are secured; and if by sailing on a longer line a vessel gets into winds blowing her along ten and twelve miles an hour, day and night, the extra distance she steers to find such winds is amply made up to her by the greater speed they enable her to travel at.

Differing from Canada and our North American colonies in this respect, there is no particular "season" in which to sail for New Zealand. We certainly have to provide for more Passengers from May to October than in the other six months; but our ships sail regularly at intervals of a few days, the year through. It is always hot for a week or two near the equator, and always cool or cold in sweeping round the Cape and St,

Paul's; but there is no real winter to be encountered either in New Zealand or in going thither, and the practice of our Passengers is to sail when quite prepared, and not to wait for any particular month.

The voyage may seem, and really is, a long one; but when people are pleasant with each other – especially during the first unsettled week of two, which is always the worst time – it passes away far more smoothly and quickly than would generally be believed. Eating, drinking, and sleeping, alone, occupy many an hour of the four-and-twenty; then there is company and conversation, the weekly service of religion, 36 the solace of books, chess and draughts, evening song and occasional dance, the meeting of other travellers on the deep, the painted skies of tropical sunsets, and the novel sights of dolphin and boneta, nautilus and flying fish, albatross and frigate-bird, shark and whale.

Some profitable employment, too, may be found on board; some useful knowledge may be acquired; while there are children and even adults to teach. We have known father and boys fructify many an idle hour making useful fishing nets, while mother and girls of the humbler order of emigrants, providing calicoes and cottons, make up little stocks of apparel worth good pounds to them on arrival.

Thus, what with one thing, what with another, the time passes away; and though in 80 or 100 days at sea there will be tedious hours, the reflective emigrant easily endures them when he remembers that emigration is a tonic medicine, saving or restoring us, and that the voyage it entails is the mere smack of bitter tasted for the moment as we take the draught.

As to health and safety, a voyage to New Zealand in a first-class, well-found, well-commanded, Passenger Packet is now made without fear or risk. The improvement in the construction of ships, the higher training and education of captains and officers, the

discoveries of experience in perfecting ventilation, the aids of science in enabling us to store our Liners with fresh provisions and abundant water, have so reduced the "perils of the sea," that among the thousands of passengers whom, in the last few years, we have conveyed to New Zealand, the mortality, especially among infants, has actually been less than the returns of the Registrar General show would have occurred among an equal number of people living ashore.

SHIPS. – Our Passenger Packets are vessels of from 1,500 to 2,500 tons – all picked, A1. Ships, carrying-Surgeons, and commanded by experienced Officers. They generally load at the "New Zealand Quay," in the East India Docks, drop down to Gravesend, and then proceed down Channel, without stop or call, to their various New Zealand Ports. They are regularly advertised in the Times; while every information as to Ships on the Berth, Ports of Destination, Days of Sailing, &c, &c, may always be obtained by addressing a line to us at 34, Leadenhall Street.

PROVISIONING SHIPS – Our Chief-cabin Passengers (the same as in the Indian Lines) are supplied with a liberal table, including an abundance of live stock. Indeed, as a large proportion of our Passengers are those who come to us through the recommendations of friends who have preceded them to the Colony by our Ships, and as these recommendations are based partly on the "good table" which they have experienced, we find it best for our own interest, as well as for our passengers', to conduct our sea house-keeping, for all compartments of the Ship, on a somewhat liberal scale; and we venture to think that in this respect those who entrust to us the business of conveying them to New Zealand will never have just cause to complain.

The Table supplied to Passengers in all other compartments of the Ship than in the Chief Cabin is given in the Dietary Scale below.

SCALE OF DIETARY FOR EACH ADULT, SECOND, AND THIRD, CABIN PASSENGER, PER WEEK.

ARTICLES.

Second Cabin.

Third Cabin

Preserved Meats

2 lb.

1 lb.

Soup and Bouilli

1/2 lb.

–

York Ham

1/2 lb.

–

Fish

1/4 lb.

–

Prime India Beef

1 lb.

1 1/4 lb.

Irish Mess Pork

1 1/2 lb.

1 lb.

Biscuit

4 1/4 lb.

3 1/2 lb.

Flour

4 1/4 lb.

3 lb.

Rice

1 lb.

1/2 lb.

Barley

1/2 lb.

–

Peas

1/2 pint

1/2 pint

Oatmeal

1/2 pint

1 pint

Sugar, Raw

1 lb.

1 lb.

Lime Juice (in Tropics)

6 oz.

6 oz.

Tea

1 1/2 oz.

1 1/2 oz.

Coffee

3 oz.

2 oz.

Butter

1/2 lb.

6 oz.

Cheese

1/4 lb.

–

Currants, or

1/4 lb.

–

Raisins, Valencia

1/2 lb.

1/2 lb.

Suet

6 oz.

6 oz.

Pickles

1/4 pint

1/4 pint

Mustard

1/2 oz.

1/2 oz.

Pepper

1/4 oz.

1/4 oz.

Salt

2 oz.

2 oz.

Potatoes fresh, or

3 1/2 lb.

2 lb.

Ditto preserved

1/2 lb.

1/2 lb.

Water

21 quarts

21 quarts

For all children and infants an equivalent quantity of sago, flour, rice, raisins, suet, and sugar will be substituted for salt meat, if required.

Provisions of the best quality are put on board according to the above scale for 22 weeks, together with an abundant supply of extra stores, as medical comforts, for passengers, generally.

DRINKABLES. – Ale, porter, wines, and spirits are put on board and supplied at the following rates; but, under the provisions of the Passengers' Act, spirits cannot be supplied to any other than Chief Cabin Passengers, save and accept as "medical comforts,"

under the sanction of the Surgeon; while for the strict preservation of order and sobriety in the ship, and for the good of all, the quantity of wine and spirits, supplied to Passengers of any class is never allowed to be in excess.

WlNES –

s. d.

Port

3 6

per Bottle,

Sherry

3 6

"

Claret

2 6

"

Champagne (Quarts)

4 0

"

(Pints)

2 3

"

SPIRITS –

Brandy

4 0

"

Whiskey

3 0

"

Geneva

2 6

"

BEER –

Ale

1 0

"

Porter

1 0

"

(PRIVATE) EXTRA STORES. – We are often asked by our second and third class Passengers whether it be desirable to take a few little "extras." The Dietary Scale given at page 89 will be found fully adequate to supply all necessaries, and to keep up health and strength for even the longest voyage. But, where circumstances admit of it, a few little extras will be found a nice addition to the sea-fare, and will give a little variety to its sameness. Thus, we should advise those who can afford it, especially where there are children, to take with them a small quantity of jams and jellies, some fancy biscuits, some sago, or arrowroot, a little raspberry vinegar, some soda and acid to make a cool drink in the tropics, and such like things as can be packed in small compass, and prepared without much trouble. Preserved milk, also, is a great, though rather an expensive, luxury, There is one preparation of it, however, in the shape of a powder, a small bottle of which makes a quart of milk, at a cost of a shilling. It possesses an advantage over milk preserved in a liquid state, inasmuch as it need not be all used at once. Where there are children, it will be found a very nice thing.

RATES OF PASSAGE.

SALOON CABIN (with a Table liberally supplied with Provisions of the best quality, including Live Stock), according to size

50 Guineas and upwards, each person.

"STERN" SALOON CABINS, by special agreement

SECOND CABIN (with the Fare of the Scale at page 89), enclosed cabins

£25 to £30 each person.

THIRD CABIN (Intermediate), with the Fare of the Scale at page 89, enclosed berths

£18 to £22 each person.

THIRD CABIN (Steerage), with the Fare of the Scale at page 89, open berths...

£15 to £20 each person.

For Children, under 12 years, one-half of the above rates are paid. For Infants, under 12 months, no charge is made.

VOYAGE-CLOTHING (THE LEAST) REQUIRED BY SECOND AND THIRD CABIN PASSENGERS: –

Children.

1 warm cloak or outside coat.
2 suits of outer clothing, with sufficient head covering.
7 shirts or shifts.
4 flannel petticoats, or waistcoats.
6 pairs of stockings (half worsted).
2 pairs of good boots or shoes.
1 or 2 pairs warm gloves.

Women.

1 good warm cloak (made with a hood), or 1 good warm shawl.
2 strong gowns, one to be warm, and head covering.
6 shifts.
2 good flannel petticoats,
6 pairs stockings (half worsted).
2 pairs strong boots or shoes.
1 or 2 pairs warm gloves.

Men.

1 good, warm overcoat.
2 suits of outer clothing.
6 shirts.
2 flannel or Guernsey shirts.
6 pairs socks, or stockings (half worsted).
2 pairs strong boots or shoes.
1 Scotch or other cap, and a southwester or good felt hat.
(Chimney-pot hats are not worn on board, nor yet in the colony.)
4 towels, and 2 lbs. marine soap for each person.

As in each person's common stock of clothing there is generally a portion wearable enough to form half of this Voyage-Outfit, the cost of the new things to be bought will not exceed a few pounds. Of course, where a Passenger can afford it, he may provide twice this outfit. It is a great mistake, however, to think that a large stock of clothing is indispensable for the voyage. Passing through the heat of the tropics, and exposed to cold at the southward of the Cape, Passengers should be provided against both extremes. But this can well be done without making preparations of an elaborate or expensive character. We should, too, advise all passengers to obtain the sea-going portion of their Outfit from one or other of the many respectable outfitters in London, for these Houses have had much experience in the trade, and can give their customers sound, practical, advice.

REGULATIONS OF THE LINE.

ENGAGING PASSAGE. – The earlier cabins and berths are secured, of course, the better the choice. A deposit of one-half (forfeited in case of non-embarkation) is paid on engaging the passage. It can be remitted from the country by post-office orders, or, when large in amount, by banker's draft.

FITTING UP CABINS. – Chief Cabin Passengers fit up their own cabins. Second Cabin and other Passengers have berths built for them, but find their own bedding, and any little extra fittings they may think they require. They also provide themselves (according to the number of the party) with knives, forks, spoons, tin dishes and baking dish, a saucepan or two, cups, saucers, and mugs, metal tea and coffee-pot (a hook teapot to hang on the bars of the stove is very handy), water-cans with lids (equal to holding a gallon for each member of the family) and bags, tins, or canisters, to hold a week's small stores and half a week's rations; together with wash-bowl, 4 lbs. of marine soap, towels, brush and comb, and slop pail with lid. A dozen or two hooks to screw into the ceiling and sides of the berths, some tacks, a couple of gimblets, a claw hammer, and a ball of strong string, will also be found useful; and a small filter, though not necessary, is occasionally taken in the second

cabin, together with a small safety lantern, and 6 lbs. of composition candles. Some admirable hints as to fitting up Cabins, the preparation of sea dishes, the life on board ship, &c, &c, will be found in a little work, which every emigrant should get, called "Life at Sea," price 2d., published by Mr. Street, 3O, Cornhill, London.

BEDDING. – Beds, or (better) good new mattrasses, should be of these dimensions: – Single female, 5 1/2 feet by 18 inches; men's, 6 feet by 20 inches; married couples, 6 feet by 36 inches. Bolsters and pillows to match, and for each mattrass two or three pairs coarse sheets, two blankets, and one strong coverlet. The Second Cabin and Steerage-voyage clothing is described at page 91.

COOKING. – This, for the Second Cabin and Steerage, is done at the public stoves, on deck, by the Cooks of the Ship; and, Passengers of these classes, prepare their own favourite dishes, make their own arrangements for forming themselves into little parties for messing, and keep their own compartments clean and comfortable. 37

ISSUING STORES AND RATIONS. – The Steward and one of the officers of the Ship issue the stores and rations to Second Cabin and Steerage Passengers, at a fixed hour, generally as follows: – water every day, meat and large stores every second day, groceries and small stores once a-week.

LUGGAGE. – Chief cabin passengers carry 20 cubic feet measurement, Second cabin 20 feet, and Steerage 10 feet of luggage, free of charge: the remainder, if any, is paid for at the rate of 1s. 6d. per cubic foot. Boxes intended for the cabin should not exceed 2 feet 3 inches long, 1 foot 8 inches broad, and 1 foot 3 inches high. Luggage forwarded from the country for shipment must be carriage paid. The name of the passenger and the port of his destination should be painted on each case or package; and then each should have a card tacked on bearing this direction: – "To be delivered at the East India Docks, per New Zealand ship – – – – – – – – -" All passengers' luggage and goods, too, should be delivered at the docks three days before the sailing of the ship.

N.B. – The luggage necessary to have in the cabin should be marked "cabin," and that the most likely to be "wanted on the voyage," should bear these words, so that it may be stowed in the hold where it can be got it. The linen, &c., required by intermediate and fore cabin passengers for the first week or two is best packed in a handy bag, and all bedding should be clearly marked "cabin."

Every care will be taken of passengers' baggage, but no responsibility in respect of it attaches to the ship unless a bill of lading is taken. This is recommended when there is much extra luggage, and then each package must be marked and numbered.

In cases where passengers are taking goods or a large quantity of effects, requiring the services of a Custom House agent for clearing, we are always happy to act.

EMBARKATION. – Chief cabin passengers, and generally a portion of the Second, embark at Gravesend the day after the ship has left dock; but Steerage passengers will find it better to embark in the docks. Trains to Gravesend, 30 miles off, leave the Fenchurch Street Station about every hour and a half. At Gravesend, the vessel anchors about half a mile from the pier, and remains there about 24 hours. Shore boats put passengers on board at the rate of 6d. per head when there is a party of four. To save themselves expense, fore cabin passengers from the country, after they have all ready to start, should write and ask us what day they must be at the docks. We would caution them, too, when in London, to give the cold shoulder to any strangers who may kindly offer to assist them in any little matter; for sometimes there are even decent-looking men prowling round the docks and dock streets, whose room is better than their company. If any little difficulties arise, country passengers should at once come to our Office, where they will receive every attention and assistance.

N.B. – When there is a large family party, or a party of friends going together, especially in the Second Cabin and Steerage, it will be found a capital plan for one or two of the most active members of it to come up to the ship three or four days before the rest, so as to complete the various little cabin, arrangements, and to get so much at-home on board as to enable them to receive and welcome the rest.

SEEING SHIPS IN DOCK. – We are always pleased that our vessels should be inspected by intending emigrants or their friends, for we know that they will bear inspection. But after our ships arrive home on their return voyages from China, India, Australia, or New Zealand, with their cargoes of tea, silk, wool, or what not, we always give them a thorough overhauling; and if any of our country friends should happen to go down to look at the finest packets of our Line, or the finest ship afloat, when they are in this "stripped state," or even when they are in dock taking in cargo and finishing fitting up, they would find them in a very disorderly condition. Indeed, the difference between a ship in dock receiving her stores and freight, with her sails unbent, her decks lumbered up with cargo, and the same ship at Gravesend or in the Channel, all bright, clean, and orderly, cannot be appreciated by those who have not had an opportunity of judging; and if when a passenger is looking at one of our ship, there happen to be any first-class vessel for any part of the world, about leaving dock, such vessel would give him a more truthful idea of the real sea-going look and state of one of our Packets, than the particular ship he might think of going by, if such ship were only preparing for her voyage.

NEW ZEALAND GENERAL OUTFIT. – Almost the only important question on which practical New Zealand authorities have materially differed has been the question of Outfit: – some, almost recommending the Emigrant to land with little more than a walking stick and a wallet; others, to take almost every article from house and mangle down to pepper-box and rolling-pin. We wish we could tell our readers that the last advice was the best, for if each of our Passengers would carry some good bulky freight with him, he would be so much the better a customer. Judging, however, by the evidence of Colonists, who are now so frequently visiting the Mother Country on trips of pleasure and business, and most of whom we have the pleasure of conveying back, we are bound to say that, in these present days, the small outfit is far better than the big one. Some years ago, when the Colony was more in its infancy, and before trade had made its channels, there were many articles necessary for the emigrant to take which he could now purchase in the shops and stores of the Colony almost as advantageously, everything considered, as he could at-home; and, now, New Zealand outfits cannot well be too small.

At the same time, it should be said that the capitalist or small-capitalist, going to New Zealand to embark in some particular pursuit, might still find it better to take with him certain special things needed in such pursuit than to trust to getting them, just when he wanted them, equally good and genuine in the Colony. Here, however, it is obviously impossible to lay down any general rule; and, here, any of our readers, desiring further information, should write to us and avail themselves of the offer made in our Introductory Remarks. We think, too, that when a family, breaking up any little home or household, is about to have a Sale, they would do well, first, to put aside a few of their best and most portable things to take with them. A little store of table cutlery and linen, a few good blankets, a good carpet or two, any little plate, a few good books, and prints, any little odds and ends of ornament and use,

are easily packed, cost no great deal in freight, and are familiar "bits of things" which it will be pleasant to have about one in the new house in the New Land; while if any of them have to be replaced there, as would probably be the case, they would cost quite double, possibly quadruple, the money they would fetch at the sale at-home.

With these two exceptions, however, and merely adding that there should be taken a fair stock of clothing of much the same description as would be worn in rural life in England, including a good supply of strong, water-tight, lace-up boots, we unhesitatingly say that, in these days, in fitting out for New Zealand, the passenger's motto should be, as much money as possible, and as few things"

Our mechanic friends always take their most useful tools, and both mechanics and labourers, in addition to the voyage-clothing, described at page 91, which is the least the Government Inspector will let them embark with, should take any little additional apparel they may possess, and any little, box-packing, articles of handy use.

TAKING MONEY. – Small sums of money can be taken in gold, and placed in one's box, but the safer plan for sums of any considerable amount is to take "Letters of Credit." These can be obtained either at the Banks doing business with New Zealand, or at our own office. We issue them to Passengers by our Line, free of charge. The Passenger pays into our hands the amount he wishes to take with him, and receives in exchange, an Order, a "Letter of Credit," as it is called, on our Agents at the Port to which he is bound. The Letters of Credit are issued in duplicate; and the usual plan is for the Passenger to carry one with him, and to enclose the other in a Registered Letter addressed to himself, to lie till called for, at the Post Office of the New Zealand Port to which he is going – when, on arrival and presentation of either copy of the document, he at once receives the amount

in gold. Sums of from £10 to £1000 and more, are now generally taken by our Passengers in this way.

TAKING SERVANTS. – Our Chief-cabin Passengers now frequently take with them some favourite domestic servant accustomed to the children, or some good married labourer or handy working man whose wife will help a little in the house on arrival, generally under the agreement that the passage-money shall be repaid, by degrees, out of the high wages current in the Colony. In going to Auckland, too, as shown at page 44, 40 acres are now allowed for each person over eighteen, and 20 acres for each person between five and eighteen, who may be taken out at the expense of any friend or employer; while, under the "Assisted Passage" regulations of other Provinces, we can occasionally get the Government agents to pay half the cost of a third cabin passage for any domestic, labourer, or labourer's family, whom our chief cabin Passengers may wish to help out.

INSURANCE. – Looking at the trifling cost of insurance, it ought not, we think, to be neglected by Passengers, for in the finest ships afloat accidents, causing loss or damage of goods, may occasionally occur. If effects are well packed in zinc or tin the rate we charge is 30s. or 35s. per cent, on the value insured; if ordinarily packed, from 35s. to 40s. Amounts exceeding £100 should be ordered to be insured as long as possible before sailing.

ARRIVAL IN THE COLONY. – On reaching their destination, our passengers have the right of remaining on board 48 hours after arrival, and in any little matters of doubt or difficulty, sometimes arising when strangers first land in a new country, our Representatives at the port of arrival will gladly afford them any information or advice which they may require. Furnished lodgings, cottages, and plain comfortable family inns and boarding houses, are now found in all the chief towns.

Mechanics and Labourers, Domestic Servants and

others, cannot do better then get to work as soon a possible on arrival, at or near the place they land at and thus commence at once to pocket the high wage they will be offered. Where, however, there is a considerable capital to invest in the purchase of land or in agricultural or pastoral pursuits, and the capitalist emigrant is not fairly satisfied with the particular neighbourhood he may have come to, he will do well to settle his family in comfortable lodgings for a few weeks, and take a trip by one of the coasting steamers in order to see if there be any district in any other Province which he would like better.

CONCLUDING REMARKS. – As a Commercial House engaged in the responsible business of conveying Passengers to New Zealand, it is, of course, our interest to promote Emigration thereto. But we should take very erroneous view of what was conducive to our interest, were we, by any exaggerated statements c the merits of New Zealand as an Emigration Field, to seek to attract thither a single person who would no succeed there – for if, by falsely-brilliant pictures of any New Land, a person unfitted for Emigration be led to Emigrate, he very frequently finds his way back to the Old Country, a disappointed, soured Man – when his "ill-reports" of such New Land may have the effect of preventing a dozen fit and proper People, who might have succeeded there, from going thither.

Indeed, the legitimate interests of all who issue Works seeking to direct Capital and Labour to an Emigration Field are best served by depicting it in such sober hues that the Emigrant Reader shall realize not a worse but a better country than he had been led to expect, and, this, we have sought to do throughout every page of the "New Zealand Handbook."

In regard to Colonies and Emigration Fields, we would observe, too, in conclusion, that in respect to the "Advantages reaped by a Man," the chief difference between an Old Country and a Young one seems to us, to be this – namely, that while Industry, Energy

Enterprise, till the virtues which lead to success in life, are almost equally necessary in each, in the former, owing to over-population, to excessive competition, and to other ills and evils incident to old communities, a Man, work he head or hands ever so hard, does very frequently fail to reap any adequate fruits from his "Life of Efforts" – whereas in a young and growing Colony like New Zealand, Industry, Energy, Enterprise, sooner or later, bring a Man his sure and great reward.

SHAW, SAVILL & CO.,
The Passengers' Line of Packets,
34, LEADENHALL STREET,
LONDON, E. C.

36 When among our passengers there is no Minister of Religion to take Sunday morning Service, the Commander, or some obliging volunteer, reads prayers to all on board in the Chief Cabin, or in fine weather on the Poop.

37 The assistance of one or two of the ship's boys is, however, generally given a cleaning the Second Cabin.

CHAPTER IX. WHAT A MAN CAN DO IN NEW ZEALAND...

CHAPTER IX.

WHAT A MAN CAN DO IN NEW ZEALAND: THE CHIEF INDUSTRIAL PURSUITS OF THE COLONY, AND THE VARIOUS "OPENINGS" FOR CAPITAL, ENTERPRISE, AND LABOUR.

On these important Subjects we are able to lay before our Readers the following contribution from one whose long personal experience of New Zealand, and of colonies generally, well qualify him, we think, to speak with authority on the topics of which he treats.

9, ROTHWELL STREET,
Primrose Hill, Regent's Park,
JULY 1, 1866.

GENTLEMEN,
Still taking warm interest in a young Colony where some of my happiest years have been spent

I gladly put off Highland Streams 38 for awhile to comply with your request for a short Paper on the various openings now existing in New Zealand for the profitable employment of capital and labour.

For the information of your Headers, interested in those pastoral and agricultural pursuits on which I have first touched, I would observe that "New Zealand Farming and Grazing" has long been a favourite study of mine, that many of my friends are still extensively engaged in the "Rural Life" in New Zealand, and that, in a small way, I have, myself, for many a day, plied the axe and turned the furrow, there.

I may perhaps remark, too, that some years ago now, the "combination" of advantages offered by New Zealand as a Country, in which a man, of the rigid stamp, might create a pleasant "Home," by means of Plough and Fleece, induced a large party of my people, accompanied by my late father (an old, experienced Lincolnshire agriculturist) to pack up and be off thither; while I would further observe that, should pleasure or profit again lead me to a Colony, New Zealand is the one I should again choose. Indeed, though I might go to many a Colony to make money, New Zealand is the only one in which I would care to "live;" and, after having visited Canada and the States, Australia and the Cape, 39 the con-

clusion I have come to in respect to New Zealand is this – that, while a man; of the right emigrant metal, "does as well" in New Zealand as he does anywhere else, he finds there, a goodness of climate and a goodness of society, combined with a "pleasantness of life" which he can find nowhere else.

Each of our dozen great colonies and emigration fields boasts some attractions – one offers us this thing, one offers us that; and taking, as I trust I do, a broad and catholic view of colonies and of their fruitfulness to the mother country, I ever wish success to each and all of them. It is, therefore, from no puny desire to detract one iota from the merits of our great American, African, and Australian Possessions, that I express my conviction that in "combination" of natural and social advantages they, are, all, substantially inferior to New Zealand – a conclusion, too, signally supported by the following pregnant fact which all of our "emigrating people" would do well to ponder on, namely this – that there is now in New Zealand a considerable body of Colonists made up of persons who have actually re-emigrated or removed to New Zealand, from Nova Scotia, Canada, the States, the Cape Colony, Victoria, and New South Wales!

The space to which I have thought it right to confine my remarks in this little Work, has compelled me to write on every topic with brevity; but, I would observe, that whenever any of your Readers desires to obtain fuller information on any point I have touched on – or, indeed, to obtain information and advice on any New Zealand matter – I shall always be happy to afford it, by replying to his Inquiries directed to my present London address, as above, or to my Publisher, MR. STANFORD, 6, Charing Cross, when his Letter would be forwarded on to wherever I was staying; or by giving him an "Interview" when in Town,

I am, Dear Sirs,
Yours truly,
CHARLES HURSTHOUSE.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

It has been well said that the four most pregnant events ever happening to man on earth are Birth, Death, Marriage, Emigration; and, truly, there is no step whereon a man should ponder more before he takes it than on that of moving himself and his family to some New Land. A man, too, contemplating Emigration, weighing its "pros and cons," is a man worthy of one's liveliest sympathy and support – to me, indeed, the British Emigrant is a far more interesting British production than the British Peer, for the latter is born to the Estate, while the former creates it, and, wherever he goes, "makes the Desert blossom like the Rose." Entertaining views like these, therefore, I shall ask leave to preface my humble Paper on New Zealand's Industrial Pursuits by a word or two on certain elementary "Truths," of Emigration from which your Emigrant Readers, wistfully looking, perhaps, at our young "Britain of the South," may, possibly, be able to draw some little comfort, encouragement, and support.

1. – In the last fifty years, no fewer than 6,000,000 of our people 40 have departed from. the Mother Country to our various Emigration Fields; and a familiarity with the moving influences and causes of Emigration

would enable us, safely, to say that one half of this vast exodus has been created by the "reports of success" sent back by the other half. Emigration, indeed, might truly be termed a specific for the malady of "poverty and ill-doing;" and, satisfied on this cardinal point, the more stolid type of Emigrant might care little to inquire why Emigration was such a specific. But, the more advanced and curious, contemplating the great step of Emigration, and fully believing in its virtues, might well like to be able to give a reason for the faith that was in them. They see that the 99 men in the 100 who did not succeed in the Old World, are the 99 who do succeed in the New, and they might well like to be able to explain this – to be able to point to what was the natural, the fundamental, politico-economical, cause of Emigration's being so universally beneficial to mankind; and, to such, I would say that, to me, the "reasons and the cause" seem to lie in the following truths, namely these. We know, that industrial combination of Capital and Labour operating on Soil, and on the productions and accompaniments of Soil, mainly creates the wealth of all old countries – but, in old, densely-peopled countries, like England, there are so many millions of people struggling to share in and divide this wealth, that very many of them get but very little of it; while very many, trampled down in the battling crowd, get none at all. Now, industrial combination of Capital and Labour, operating on Soil, and on the productions and accompaniments of Soil, mainly produces the wealth of New Countries; and though, here, there is far less of that which we may term the "artificial" producer of wealth, namely "Capital and Labour," there is far more of what we may term the "natural" producer of wealth, namely, Soil, and the now Soil is richer, far, in unrifled treasures. Thus, the wealth produced, the profits obtained, in a rich young virgin country like New Zealand, are proportionately much greater than the wealth produced, the profits obtained, in an old, half-used-up, long-squeezed country

like England, France, or Germany; and in the young Colony there is but such a handful of people to share in and divide this "wealth," that each member of the community secures to himself a goodly portion of it.

2. – Again, our Embryo-Emigrant, contemplating the transplantation of himself and wife, and bairns, and books, and household gods, to some New Land, might, I think, draw further solace from the reflection that the Human Being, both to himself and to others, is a far more valuable Being, so to speak, in a "New" Country than in an "Old" one – where, indeed, he might almost be described as a drug in the market, a bit of waste surplus, of less account among millions of his fellows than patent mangle, or prize pig. In a young, virgin, Land, like New Zealand, teeming with the natural elements of wealth, and undergoing the fructifying process of colonisation and civilization, all Man's social and political institutions, all his industrial pursuits, enterprises, and careers, are only beginning to be developed, everything is growing – whereas, in an "old" country, like England, these things are already developed, some of them, indeed, perhaps decaying. Hence, relatively, there is far more of Man's work to do in a new community, emerging from the wilderness, than in an old community, massed in cities. But, not only is there more work to do in the new community – even, relatively, there are far fewer people to do the work. With upwards of 30,000,000 souls pent up in our little British Isles, if, in any walk of life, a bit of good work is to be had, a guinea to be earned, scores start up to battle for it. But, in our vast colonial possessions, the Human Being is, comparatively, so scarce a Being, that instead of there being a dozen Men for one "opening," there are a dozen "openings" for one Man. Indeed, in New Zealand, all the young pursuits, careers, and industries of the Country – her agriculture in its two great branches, her mining enterprises, her commercial pursuits, and a dozen Industries springing from or allied to these – are, all, demanding more hands and heads; all demanding

more capital and labour; more men, women, and children, for their development and support; and, for a century to come, New Zealand's chiefest want will be her "Want of People."

3. – Again, many a Small Capitalist who has done me the honour to consult me about New Zealand, has expressed misgivings as to his, or his family's personal fitness for, and ability to undertake, the New Life in the New Land; and such misgivings are not uncommon among the "embryo-emigrant" orders of our people. It is well they should be, for, undoubtedly, the first question to ask in contemplating emigration is, not whether New Zealand be good enough for A. and his family – but whether A. and his family be good enough for New Zealand. Yet even on this point, the right man for a Colony, may take heart. If by "fitness" for emigration be meant merely our willingness to accept that active, out-door, hand-using life which emigration to New Zealand entails, each of us can and must answer for himself. There is the emigration "fruit" guarded, let us say, by the emigration "thorns," and we may cither take the fruit despite the thorns, or leave the fruit through fear of them. But, if by "fitness" for New Zealand emigration, be meant the ability to perform, or to learn to perform, the functions of a New Zealand Colonist's life, doubts and fears may instantly be dismissed; and on this subject I may, perhaps, be permitted to quote the following remarks on "Qualifications for Emigration," which appear in the second edition of a little Work of mine, bearing the somewhat ambitious title of New Zealand, the "Britain of the South:" – "If asked to name the two most success-ensuring qualities which an emigrant of the capitalist or small-capitalist class could carry to New Zealand, I should say Pluck and Patience. It is not so much the clever, brilliant man, as the sober, steadfast, hopeful man who climbs highest in the colony. Great talents are good in a colony, and great talents go to a colony – but they are not, relatively, so useful to a man in a young country

as in an old one. All the industrial occupations and pursuits of the Young Land are conducted in so simple, so primitive, a way, that almost any man may conduct them with success. In the professions, in commercial pursuits, in all the common businesses of life in England, any man, however clever, competent, or persevering he may be, may have some astute rival at his door, who has had the tact to tickle the public into the belief that he is a more clever, competent, or persevering man; and who, thus, carries off the loaves and fishes, and the largest spoil. But there are few or no Pursuits in the broad fields of a young colony where a Man will lose ground because of the presence of any better Man than himself; and though fools don't emigrate because they have not sense enough, fools – steady fools – unquestionably might emigrate and do well.

"This easiness and simplicity of all our New Zealand Pursuits renders a special training for them quite unnecessary. In a new country, we say any man can do anything. That venerable aphorism of our schools, the "Ne sutor ultra crepidam," may be a golden maxim for all old-world workers – it rules none but veritable cobblers in a colony. Life in a Colony is not a narrow, circumscribed, routine life, closely hedged in and trimly squared by tyrant form and custom. In a Colony, there is none of that microscopical subdivision of labour under which one man blows one note, and one pin passes through a hundred hands. In a Colony, the development of our individual humanity is not altogether arrested by the progress of the social principle; there, our claws are not pared; there, each of us is something more than the revolving wheel of a machine; and there, with equal certainty and success, Soldier beats sword into ploughshare, Sailor steers harrow, Merchant turns Farmer, Farmer turns Merchant, Lawyer acquires an estate by deed of axe, not by deed of pen; doctor, tossing physic to the dogs, thrives better on fine Wool than once on fine Ladies; and, with the old "Arcadian" simplicity revived, the Milking Stool

might become fit Throne for the fairest Daughters of men.

"Indeed, in one of the commonest and most agreeable of our New Zealand Pursuits – the purchase of wild land and the gradual creation of landed Estate by Plough and Fleece – many Colonists, so far from deeming it necessary that the Emigrant should have had any "old-world" experience of agriculture, contend that the active professional or town-bred man often succeeds better, that is, makes quicker first progress, than the home-bred farmer. They assert that the old-world farmer, trained up to a highly artificial old-world system, a man of a class remarkable for prejudice and the slow reception of new ideas, has a great deal to unlearn when he lands in New Zealand. and that he will lose time in clinging to many old-world fashions which are utterly unsuited to the new life in the new land. Whereas soldier, sailor, mechanic, merchant, trader, lawyer, doctor, having nothing to unlearn, no prejudices to disgorge, the mind being the "tabula rasa," will at once adopt that simple new-world practice which they see so successful around them; and this argument is very forcibly supported by a fact which I have remarked not only in New Zealand, but in Canada, Africa, Australia, and elsewhere, namely, that some of the finest Estates one goes over, have been created by Men who scarcely knew beans from barley, or long wool from a short, before they emigrated.

"In truth, experience of all colonies shows that the new duties of a Colonist's life are very easily learned, and very effectively performed, by our emigrant families of the capitalist and small capitalist classes who embrace a colonial career. Paterfamilias and the boys soon grow knowing in ploughs and cunning in wool; Mamma distinguishes herself in the dairy; while as to young ladies of the "nez retrousse" order, who may persist in protesting that they can't help mothers and maids in the kitchen, they are at once to be subdued by being submitted to the operation of a sumptuary

law of Draconian severity shearing them, while recalcitrant, of scarlet cloak and crinoline."

4. – Lastly, let us offer a word on those natural feelings of repugnance at leaving what we call home and friends. What is "home?" Is it the particular four brick walls within which we happened to be born? If so, scarcely one of us ever lives in home. Is it the particular city, town, village, hamlet, or clachan we happened to be born in? If so, such home is often changed by a man half a dozen times in his life; as when he moves from Connaught to Cork, or from Cornwall to Cumberland, or from Scotland to Liverpool, or from Londonderry to London. Home, I take it, is that place where, for the time being, a man sets up his house and household gods, where he has his wife and bairns and books; and if he carry these things with him, he carries his Home with him, whether he migrate from Nottingham to New Zealand, or from Nottingham to Northumberland; and the Roman was right when he said "Where I am well off, there is my Country."

As to leaving Friends, Friends are of two sorts, your dear friends and your dinner friends – those who would lend you £100 and those who would not. As to the latter, they are gay agreeable people, social butterflies who know the sunny side of the peach, who drink your wine, shawl your wife, escort your daughter, and render you and society a thousand little services. But we may leave them and live. As to our half-dozen dear friends, if we could carry them with us, the movement would be a perfect one. Sometimes, if we try, we can carry one or two of them with us; when we cannot, we must e'en say good-bye for awhile and see them by letter. When a man emigrates, he emigrates to secure certain substantial benefits for himself, his wife, his children – these are his nearest and dearest friends, and these always go with him. Moreover, he will make plenty of friends in New Zealand. The very fact of his having chosen that country in preference to any other, makes him a popular man the moment he steps ashore. He is in no one's way there, he will push no

one down the hill in climbing it himself, and he is received in a spirit of freemasonry by a community of his equals, who like him have left the old Land to better their fortunes in the new.

As to leaving the Land of our birth – "Omne solum forti patria est" – but in going to New Zealand do we, virtually, leave the Land of our birth any more than when we go to Jersey, to Scotland, to Ireland? New Zealand, rightly regarded, is an integral part of Great Britain – an immense sea-joined Devonshire. An Englishman going thither, goes among his countrymen, he has the same queen, the same laws and customs, the same language, the like schools, the like churches, the like press, the like social institutions, and, save that he is in a country where trees are evergreen, and where there is no winter, no opera, no aristocracy, no income tax, no paupers, no beggars, no cotton mills, he is, virtually, in a young England.

Neither does he in any sense become less an Englishman, or an inferior sort of Englishman. National boasts – Cressy, Trafalgar, Waterloo, Shakspeare, Newton, Bacon, Pope, Burns – belong as much to the Briton in New Zealand as to the Briton in Mid-Lothian or Middlesex. The New Zealand Colonist has at once all the bright recollections of the old England he has left, all the bright prospects of the young England he has reached: the past glories of the old Land, the dawning splendours of the New.

No degeneracy of race, either, no personal inferiority, is the attribute of emigration. Emigration is an enterprise which calls for pluck, bottom, energy, enterprise, all the masculine virtues: The feeble minded, the emasculate, the fastidious, the timid do not emigrate; they bow their necks to the yoke, ply the distaff, and spin wealth for the great at-home; and it is the Strong and the Bold who go forth to subdue the wilderness and "make the Desert blossom like the Rose." That ever snarling, mock Diogenes, the Saturday Review, ignorant as impudent on colonisation matters, stigmatizes all Colonists as "Bagmen." Colonists might

well retort that the "Bagman" element of the English Race was most predominant near Temple Bar; and that the 200,000 pioneering Colonists of New Zealand would probably count in their ranks more men naturally fitted to battle with Nature, to sway the senate, to "set the squadron in the tented field," than any promiscuously taken 200,000 of their countrymen at-home.

Having thus offered for the consideration of your embryo-emigrant Headers certain "Truths of Emigration," which may possibly tend a little to cheer them on their path, I proceed to describe the various "openings" now existing in New Zealand for capital and labour, enterprise and skill – or, in other words, to point out what a man may find to "do" there should he go there – and I arrange my subjects in the following order: –

SHEEP FARMING ON THE "SQUATTING" SYSTEM.
CATTLE FARMING ON THE "SQUATTING" SYSTEM.
"ESTATE-CREATING" BY GRAZING AND FARMING.
MINING AND AURIFEROUS INDUSTRIES.
MERCANTILE PURSUITS AND STORE-KEEPING.
MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES, &c.
PROFESSIONAL PURSUITS.
INVESTMENTS FOR CAPITAL-SPECULATIONS.
MECHANICAL AND LABOURING INDUSTRIES.
CLERKS – SHOPMEN – FEMALE IMMIGRANTS.
"THOSE WHO SHOULD STAY AT-HOME."

SHEEP FARMING ON THE "SQUATTING" SYSTEM.

This has been a leading Industry in New Zealand, and ten or a dozen years ago young men, with £2,000 or £3,000, could nowhere embark in a more manly, pleasant, profitable occupation. Leasing tracts of wild land from the Government at less than a penny an

acre, young Squatters, 41 sticking up a hut or two for Selves and Shepherds, cleared a few acres for stock-yard and paddock – drew in their barrels of flour, chests of tea, bags of sugar, from the nearest store – took mutton from the plain, pig and pigeon from the bush – saw their flocks multiply on the wild herbage of the run, with little care or labour to themselves – sent down their annual, dray-borne, wool-harvest to their banker-merchant at the Port – rode into the Settlements as business or pleasure prompted – practised a rude but hearty hospitality among themselves – ever welcomed the Stranger at their gates – and formed in New Zealand, as their fellows had long formed in Australia, a frank, jovial, high-spirited, pastoral aristocracy – a brotherhood of bronzed Bush Centaurs, "bearded like the Pard," and creating, in the golden fleece, the Colony's best Export and most certain source of expanding wealth.

There are still many hundreds of men of this goodly stamp in New Zealand, still engaged in this tine, al fresco, pursuit; but Sheep-Farming, on this system, has now almost reached its limits in New Zealand, owing to the circumstance of the wild sheep-grazing lands of the Colony being now taken up; 42 and, so far as regards the basis of the pursuit, namely the power of hiring from the Government tracts of pastoral country at a nominal rent, we may half parody the noble Moor, and say, the "Squatter's occupation's gone."

I, however, am not one who regards this check to the extension of "squatting" sheep farming at all as a colonial calamity. In the earlier days of a new Country, when there is a wilderness of wild land and a sparse, pioneering population, it is an industry most fitting for, and beneficial to, the young community – but, as population flows in and towns arise, and where, as in New Zealand, soil and climate enable the plough cheaply to quintuple the feeding powers of the herbage, it is an industry which may be most profitably superseded by that of sheep farming on the field, or "grass-sown," system.

Squatting, too, has ever been, and from the very nature of it must ever be, a pursuit far more suitable for single young men, than for settled, house-dwelling, family, people. The cheap production of wool and mutton is no doubt a meritorious and profitable achievement; but it is not the "be all" and the "end all" of emigration. I speak from pretty wide experience when I say that three-fourths of the flower of our upper class emigrants, the families who carry with them £5,000 and £10,000 to New Zealand, go thither with these aspirations, namely, those of buying two or three square miles of good land where, by plough and fleece, by the judicious application of their capital, aided by some labour of their hands, they may gradually create a snug Estate of their own: – an Estate rapidly rising in value, (partly from the improvements they effect in it, partly from the causes named at page 119): an Estate annually increasing their modest income; one giving them a pleasant country life, not too remote from schools and towns; and one affording them a safe anchorage in the new Land from which, as time rolls on and children rise, they may push out their arms and profit by any of the numerous little "openings" for the employment of accumulated capital, or for the employment of talent, energy, and respectability which a young and growing Colony, like New Zealand, offers to us all.

Now, "Squatting" opens to a Man little or nothing

of this sort. A Squatter, be he lord of 10,000 or 50,000 sheep, Peasant's son or Peer's, is only a mere Tenant of the Bush, only a mere Lodger in the Wilderness. His life, however pleasant, is a life far more suitable for one of our bachelor brotherhood, some pastoral Robinson Crusoe, expatriating himself to a colony for a dozen years, in order to make his £10,000 or £20,000 and then to return and reward "expectant" Jane, than for the married man, or man with a family, who emigrates to a colony hoping to make it his own and his children's "Home."

Sheep Farming on the "Grass-sown" system, on the contrary, gratifies this desire, common to all Men, for the possession of Land; and enables a man and his family to surround themselves with domestic comforts, and to create, by degrees, a snug little Estate and safe harbour of their own. And, owing partly to the growing belief that grazing, though a more costly pursuit to commence than Squatting and slower in early return, will eventually prove even a more lucrative pursuit; owing partly to the incoming of a fresh land-buying Population, and to the well-founded fear of the Squatters that if they don't buy the lands they rent others will, 43 there can be no question, that before many years are over, Squatting in New Zealand, becoming a Pursuit almost as extinct as the Moa, will be abandoned for "sown-grass" Grazing; and that while, under this system the Individual's profits may remain as great as before, the Colony, in another decade or two, instead of having an annual export of pastoral produce worth five millions sterling, may have an annual export of pastoral produce worth even ten.

Though, however, no young man, say A, B., could

now go to New Zealand with his couple of thousand or so and commence the Squatter life, as he might have done a few years ago, he might still partly indulge his "squatting" tastes, in this way. Some of the runs are not half "stocked-up," and, here, a runholder would occasionally be found who would be willing to make some "arrangement" with A. B., under which he might invest a few hundreds or a thousand or more in buying a certain number of ewes to be placed on the run – he, residing on, or near it, himself, learning the craft, with the Proprietor as companion; and, either as a small partner, or as one having some arranged "interest" in the Run, receiving a certain share of its annual profits: – when, after he had become a practical Colonist, and been seized by the natural ambition to have "acres of one's own," he might make a purchase in the neighbourhood, or in some other which he might have learned to like better, and commence the creation of one of the two first varieties of "New Zealand Estates" described at page 135. 44

SHEEP. – In natural advantages constituting a perfect habitat for the Sheep, there is no Country, in either Hemisphere, superior to New Zealand. The surface, for the most part, is hilly or undulating; the soil is light, percolative, and freely impregnated with all congenial oxides, sulphates, and phosphates; the climate is the happy mean of temperature and moisture; no destructive animal exists, 45 and there is a perpetual natural pasturage, with a profusion of the finest water – a rare combination of natural gifts, creating marked exemption from disease, 46 prolificness, fat and early mutton, fine wool, and heavy fleece.

The present number of New Zealand's entire flock, which has been increasing at the rate of nearly doubling itself in a period of four years, must now be approaching 6,000,000. Nine-tenths of it consist of the progeny of the imported Australian Merino, improved and enlarged by the finer feed and climate, and by the introduction of some thoroughbred merino Rams from Saxony, and elsewhere.

The existing New Zealand Merino may be described as an animal weighing about 15 lbs. per quarter, and clipping 3 1/2 and 4 lbs. fleeces at once fine and long. But when improved breeding is more generally attended to, and when the natural advantages of soil and climate are turned to full account, the New Zealand Merino may, I think, eventually, be raised into an animal weighing 18 and 20 lbs. per quarter, 47 and clipping a 4 1/2 and 5 lbs. fleece of the finest combing wool – worth 2s. or even 2s. 6d. a pound.

Indeed, to show what New Zealand is capable of doing in wool, even in these early days, I may mention a little fact of which New Zealand sheep farmers are justly proud. One of their body, Mr. Rich an eminent North Island breeder, being over in Europe, inspecting the continental Merino flocks, visited "Rambouillet," the royal sheep breeding establishment near Paris. Here, he showed a sample of his New Zealand fleeces to the Superintendent, Baron Damier, who was so much struck with it that he purchased of Mr. Rich some specimens of his Antipodean flock, which have since been shipped to France for the purpose of improving even the famous "Rambouillet sheep."

The Merino will probably ever remain Ovine King of South Britain; but, as "sown-grass" Grazing becomes more common, some heavier-fleeced, long-wool, Sheep will probably take possession of our lower-lying, richer, pastures. And, speaking as one of a family who, father and son, have been Lincolnshire graziers for 300 years, I should say that of sheep of this famous description none would prove more profitable than that magnificent animal the Improved Lincoln, as seen in the "Branston Flock" 48 – an animal which, on such grass as many districts in New Zealand are capable of producing, would probably attain a weight of from 30 to 40 lbs. per quarter, and clip an 8 and

10 lbs. fleece of lustrous long wool, worth, for the Huddersfield and Bradford market, 2s. a pound.

The following card of the proprietor of the "Branston Flock," together with the Wood Cut (from a Photograph) of one of its "Prize Ewes," given at the end of this little volume, will show the reader what our Improved Lincoln Sheep may now be made: –

MR. T. B. MARSHALL,
OF BRANSTON,
Five Miles from Lincoln,
Begs to inform New Zealand and Australian Sheep Breeders that he can supply them with pure bred Lincoln, Long-wool, Rams and Shearling Ewes.

MR. MARSHALL has already supplied Rams for New Zealand, Australia, the Cape Colony, Natal, Buenos Ayres, North America, Canada, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Prussia, and Austria; and Breeders desiring increased size, and weight of wool, will find it in this Flock, several specimens of it having clipped from 16 lbs. to 22 lbs. of wool, of a money value of from 35s. to 45s. each sheep.

The Branston Sheep, during the last three years, have obtained prizes at the Battersea, Lincoln, Hamburg, Worcester, Boston, Sleaford, Northampton, Newcastle, Gainsborough, Birmingham, and Smithfield Shows; and the Ewe which obtained the "first prize" at the last Birmingham and Smithfield Fat Cattle Shows was one of the heaviest ever killed, weighing 67 lbs. per quarter.

CATTLE FARMING ON THE "SQUATTING" SYSTEM.

This is a branch of our New Zealand Rural Industry which, owing to the greater apparent attractions of the "Golden Fleece," has hitherto been much neglected by our Colonists. New Zealand's bush-born Bos, too, is not exactly the placid animal which Janet sleeks at Islington; indeed, if not well welted now and then, he assumes the buffalo, dismaying dairy-maids and charging stockmen. Again, the life of a cattle station is a ruder life than even that of the sheep run, and, in its wilder, rougher-riding, attributes, bears much the same relation to sheep farming as fox hunting may do to thistle-whipping. As, however, all the "wild-pasture" sheep land is taken up in New Zealand, while there are millions of acres of cattle land still open, "cattle farming" is a pursuit which might now be most profitably extended. Dairy produce commands high and

steady prices, both in New Zealand and Australia; young steers for working bullocks, and heifers for the suburban farms, are in great and constant demand; and the consumption of butcher's meat is rapidly increasing; while, looking at the fatness and fine quality of New Zealand beef, and at the suitability of her climate for the curing process, we may discern the existence of a very strong probability that a large "Provision Trade" will, eventually, be created in New Zealand, supplying, in part, the rising Australian and Indian Marine.

CATTLE. – New Zealand, in her natural state, is even a more suitable country for cattle than for sheep, inasmuch, as while the latter thrive only in the open grassy country, cattle, a far more browsing stock than sheep, will not only thrive there, but will also fatten and multiply in the great bush districts of the colony, 49 where the wilderness of vegetation would make the country impenetrable to the weaker, more timid sheep, or where the rough, shrub-and-leaf feed would be distasteful to that more dainty, grass-loving, animal.

The present number of New Zealand's entire Herd amounts to about 270,000, and has been increasing at the rate of nearly doubling itself in a period of 4 years. Like the Sheep, the New Zealand Cattle are mainly the progeny of Australian imported animals, improved and enlarged by soil and climate; but, unlike the Sheep, they are of no particular breed: short-horns, long-horns, no-horns, are so mixed and blended that Youatt himself, could scarcely name the predominant strain.

The New Zealand beef, however, like the mutton, is prime butcher's meat, equal, when properly fed and dressed, to our own, which is the finest in the world. Four-year, wild-grazed, bullocks will sometimes weigh 1000 and 1200 lbs. During my last visit to the Colony I saw a small herd, fed chiefly in the bush and wild shrubberies of the New Plymouth Waitera District, which would have produced beef fit for a Christmas Show.

Cattle, too, far more patient and enduring on our rough Colonial roads than Horses, working in far cheaper gear, and needing far less care, are much used in New Zealand for farm and draught purposes. They are capable, also, of doing the State great service in breaking through, smoothing down, and improving, wild tangled districts of country at first too rough and vegetation-smothered for the feeble Sheep; and I must confess, though it be heresy to say so, that, looking at the fine beef

he gives us, at his heifer's rich dairy produce, at his strength and patience in plough and dray, at his pioneering services in the bush, I esteem the New Zealand Ox quite as much as the New-Zealand Sheep, and protest against the stuck-up Merino, with his golden coat and descent from the Ram of Colchis, being allowed, by common consent and the connivance of Squatters, to make himself out as so much bigger and better an animal in New Zealand than (when once broken in) his modest neighbour, the plodding Bullock.

"ESTATE-CREATING," BY GRAZING AND FARMING.

I use this term in order to mark a very substantial distinction between the "results" of Farming and Grazing in New Zealand and Farming and Grazing in England. In England, 99 men in 100 who farm and graze, farm and graze all the days of their lives, and no more possess a foot of Land of their own at the end of their time than they did at the beginning. They are mere Tenant Farmers, farming their Landlord's acres, Landlord farming them, and Landlord having far the best of the bargain. But, in New Zealand, the man who devotes himself to rural pursuits, who orders the Plough and rules the Flock, not only lives, and lives well, by farming and grazing, but, while so doing, creates for himself and family a nice freehold Estate. For Land, in England, there are now so many, and such an annually increasing number of, applicants that it is fast becoming a costly "luxury," no more within reach of Farmers and Graziers, and of the great bulk of the People of the British Isles, than are diamonds and precious stones. But, in New Zealand, for the ten years' rent-money of a decent English Farm, a man may buy Land enough for a Manor: there, every man may gratify that common desire of our nature to have "acres of one's own;" and, thus, while he is Farming and Grazing, he is also "creating an Estate."

But not only is it that Farming and Grazing in New Zealand is attended by the additional gain of the

creation of an Estate – it is, further, the creation of an Estate which, over and beyond the regular increase in its value derived from cultivation and improvement, derives an annual increase in value from a cause quite independent of cultivation and improvement. If, in 1866, an English Tenant Farmer, 1 in 100, say, does manage to buy the Farm he rents, and if, in 1870, he wants to sell it again, he may get a little more, or a little less, than he gave for it. But, in New Zealand, if a Man buy his 500 or 5000 acres of Wild Land in 1866, say at £1 per acre, he might sell it in 1870 for £1 if not for £2 per acre more than he gave for it; and he might do this by a law almost as certain as gravitation. The Reader must remember that in all popular young emigration fields, like New Zealand, there is an annually-increasing rise in the value of the fee simple of land arising from the constant incoming and operation of fresh capital and labour. Hundreds, indeed thousands, of New Comers are arriving in New Zealand every year, most of whom, sooner or later, get to work on the wild lands lying around the little Settlements already planted, where they fell the forest, plough up valley and plain, create gardens, orchards, pastures, corn fields; extend roads, villages, and markets; and reduce the surrounding wilderness to a civilized and cultivated country. In this way, 100 or 500 or 5000 acres of wild, back land bought tomorrow, say, at 20s. an acre, land lying, in these days, miles away from civilization, might, in 1870, be in a well-settled District, and in 1875 be in the very centre of a Township, within a mile or two of some river-port; and thus, from its improved position and neighbourhood, and without having had a penny expended on it, might be worth, in the market, full double, perhaps quadruple, what it had originally cost.

Of course, the continuance of this steady rise in the value of Land in New Zealand depends mainly on the continuance of New Zealand's popularity as a British Emigration Field. If any great national windfall were to enable the 30 millions of people cooped up in these

little British isles to dispense with emigration; or if any new Country were discovered as superior to New Zealand as New Zealand is to most other Countries, the rapid rise in the value of land in New Zealand would cease. But these are contingencies which we may dismiss from our calculation: it would be easy to show that in all human probability there will be a greater emigration from the United Kingdom and Europe during the next quarter of a century than there has been during the past; while, as to "New Countries," the geography of the world is known, and the discoverers of the sources of Nile will never discover a Country superior to New Zealand. Indeed, looking at the certainty of a continuance, if not of an increase, of emigration from Great Britain and Europe, owing to the annually increasing "pressure of population;" looking at the waning popularity of America as a high-class emigration field; 50 looking at the door just opened into Australasia via Panama, we may safely conclude that there will be an increased rather than a diminished flow of capital and labour to the Antipodes; and that, judging by the experience of the past, we might say that the future increase in the value of the soil in New Zealand, arising, in part, from the continuous incoming of fresh Capital and Labour, is a thing so certain, that the farming and grazing proprietor of Land would be warranted, for some years to come, when making out his annual balance sheet, in adding, to the credit side of the Farm Account, 15 or 20 per cent, profit on the first cost of his acres.

Though, however, these "estate-creating" advantages peculiar to Farming and Grazing in Now Zealand, have long been apparent, yet, owing partly to the quicker-coming profits of "Squatting," partly to its comparative independency of hand labour, partly to its remarkable

fitness and adaptation to the state of things prevailing in the rough, early years of a young Country, "Squatting," and not "Farming and Grazing," has, hitherto, been the chief Rural Industry of New Zealand. Now, however, as Home Markets for farm produce are yearly growing better through the free incoming of a gold-digging and a general immigrant population; now that roads and water carriage to markets have been multiplied; now that improved implements and machinery have reduced the outlay for hand labour; now that all squatting Sheep land is taken up; and now, and above all, that people are growing more and more convinced that New Zealand is not a country like Australia, whither men expatriate themselves, to become Squatters for twenty years and the day their "Golden Fleece" is gained hurry home to show it, but a country in which men may create a beautiful Home and live long to enjoy it – now that these varied considerations are beginning to operate, "Estate-creating" is a New Zealand pursuit every year becoming a more popular one – as, indeed, is most strikingly evidenced by the pregnant fact, revealed to us by our late Agricultural Statistics, that in the last four years the quantity of "fenced" land in New Zealand (mainly in pasture) has actually increased from 400,000 to 1,300,000 acres.

In short, "Estate-creating" by means of plough and fleece – a far higher and better pursuit than Squatting, or trading, or mining, or grubbing about for gold – is undoubtedly destined to become the leading pursuit of the most influential portion of New Zealand's community; and any practical agriculturist who may do me the honour to weigh the following observations on the agricultural and pastoral capabilities of New Zealand, with their attendant "farming notes," will, I think, agree with me that, well aware as we may be how much truth is imperilled by any exaggeration of language, we might, still, most reasonably assert that in happy combination of "agricultural and pastoral advantages" New Zealand is entitled to rank as the

very first Country in the world – a Country which may well become the "Granary of the Pacific," the great Cornucopia, the great Sicily of the South.

CLIMATE. – First, in glancing at the varied agricultural merits of New Zealand, let us remark her Climate, that most precious gift which agriculture can receive from Nature – for Art, which can make a poor soil rich, is powerless over winds and weather, and droughts still parch, tempests still rage, storms still devastate, as they did when rural Maro sang, and "sacred plough employed the kings and awful fathers of mankind." Those "Arctic winters" which, in our North-American colonies, lock up the land in ice and snow for a third of the year, and which make the due provision of winter-keep for stock a grievous tax on the produce of the farm – those "torrid heats" and withering "droughts" which scourge the farms and stock-stations of our African and Australian Colonies, are, in New Zealand, quite unknown.

Recollecting that the North is the hottest quarter, that the seasons are reversed, and that January is the chief harvest month, a good general idea of the climate may be formed by imagining it to be the climate of England with about half the cold of the English winter, but with an atmosphere more breezy, rarified, and pure. The rain-fall is greater than in England, but there are more fine bright sunny days; and owing to the combined operation of the constant breeze, the porous subsoil, and the hilly, undulating character of most of the country, drained as it is by countless brooks and streams, the effects of the heaviest rains soon disappear. There is neither tropical rainy season, nor, as before observed, is there anything approaching even, to the real droughts of Africa and Australia; and though the duration of periods without rain is perhaps rather longer than in England, any climatic disadvantage in this respect is more than balanced by the greater certainty in New Zealand of two dry and brilliant months for harvest weather. 51

All vegetation, too, is evergreen. Forests, wild shrubberies of small bush, grassed plains, are alike clothed with verdure winter and summer, autumn and spring; and the effects of such a climate with such a vegetation are these: – that the operations of reclaiming and cultivating land can be carried on almost equally well at all seasons of the year; that, when the first conditions of successful agriculture are complied with, all our English grain, root and fruit crops are fine in quality and heavy in yield; that little or no winter keep is necessary for stock; and that all our domestic animals multiply fast, are free from many of their European diseases, mature early, and present to the eye that clear, sleek, glossy look of coat and skin so dear to the eye of the grazier.

SOIL. – Though the singular luxuriance of vegetation in New Zealand be owing more to pre-eminent goodness of climate than to pre-eminent richness of soil, yet is the soil, for the most part, a virgin soil of fair natural fertility, and one remarkably "easy to work." Indeed, owing partly to the genial climate; partly to the general light character of the soil, there is probably no country in the world where, when the land has once been broken up, the operations of ploughing and tilling can be performed with more ease, certainty, and despatch, in all seasons of the year.

Some Arthur Young, surveying the agriculture of our New Zealand counties in the year 1900, may define a dozen varieties of soil; but in these days, or rather in this paper, it may suffice to say that, now, in New Zealand, we recognise three chief Soils: –

1. The warm, light, shallow, volcanic Soils, such as those distributed largely over the splendid province of Auckland.

2. The light vegetable Loams – prevailing in the Taranaki province; but found also in Hawke's Bay, Otago, Auckland, and, more or less, in all the provinces.

3. The Clays, more light than heavy – found in both Islands, but not generally in any over proportionate plenty.

WATER AND WATER POWER. – Next to Climate, the most remarkable feature of the agricultural superiority of New Zealand is the abundance, the seeming superabundance, of ever-running water, generally of the purest, softest quality. Perhaps we can hardly have too much of a good thing like good water, the blood of the earth; but certainly, those who would paint the lily and perfume the rose, might assert that, in these early days, half the streams which New Zealand possesses would be better for her than the whole. 52 Nevertheless, my English

agricultural readers, and assuredly our parched-up pastoral friends in South Africa and Australia well know that too many streams are better than too few. We may say, too, that not only are the thousand and one streams of New Zealand great gifts for her flocks and herds, useful land boundaries, and fine additions to her beautiful scenery, but that they would probably supply water-power enough to drive half the machinery in the world. In these rude days, the New Zealand cultivator no more dreams of making use of the water-power wasted at his feet than of getting the plough to work before 10 A. M.; but, though irrigation may never be practised in New Zealand, the day will surely come when the agricultural and cheap food-producing capabilities of the Colony will be sensibly increased by some use being made of her present waste wealth of waters.

WILD LANDS, AND MODES AND COST OF CLEARING. – The farmed and grazed lands of New Zealand consist of three chief sorts, namely Fern Land, Grass Land, Forest Land.

Pure fern land is covered with a dense, luxuriant growth of the Pteris esculenta fern, four and six feet high, 53 dotted with a bushy shrub called Tutu, a small palm-like tree called Ti tree, and a handsome, reedy, grass-like shrub, called Toetoe, and is best cleared in this way: – choosing a dry, gentle-breezy day, in any month, the fern is fired to windward, when the fire, creeping slowly through, shrivels up the shrubs, and consumes the tops and branches of the live fern, together with all dead bottom stuff. The charred fern stalks are then swept down with a stub-scythe, raked in ridges, and burnt; and the tutu and other stumps grubbed up, thrown in heaps, and burnt or carted off. The land is then broken up six or seven inches deep, with a strong iron plough (wrought-iron share) drawn by two or three pairs of oxen. After lying a week or two to dry and pulverize, it is harrowed, and the fern root is then raked up, heaped, and burnt. A light cross-ploughing is then given, when the soil, after lying in a kind of maiden fallow for three or four months 54 will be reduced to a fine tilth, fit for crop. The expense of this process varies from £3 to £4 per acre, according to the heaviness of the fern and tutu.

Grass Land, more abundant in the South Island than in the North, consists of coarse grasses, here and there intermingled

with scrubby fern, flax, dwarf tutu, toetoe, and ti-tree. Where these intermingled shrubs grow strong and thick, they are swept down with bill-hook or brushing-bill and burnt off; but the lighter, more open lands of this description may be broken-up and cross-ploughed at once, lie fallow a month or two, and then receive the crop. The cost of reducing Grass Land to seed state varies from £1 to £2 per acre.

Bush Land is the common forest land. Before the spring month of September, the brushwood should be slashed down with the bill-hook, and all the trees, not exceeding three feet or so in diameter, thrown by the American axe and cross-cut saw. The few larger fellows, those more of the Trafalgar-square column size, are let alone: the fire, and then the want of shade and shelter kills them, when, gradually becoming blanched by the weather, they stand up in bush clearings like huge forest ghosts, What with work, what with sport, in America, Canada, the Cape Colony, Australia, and New Zealand, I have toiled pretty hard at several things, and should say that for bringing out the muscle, and arousing the combative, do or die spirit of the Anglo-Saxon, nothing better could be devised than to give him an axe and a barrel of beer and to set him down before ten or twenty acres of good solid New Zealand forest. The smaller trees and brushwood, forming what we call the "fallen stuff," lie withering and drying through the summer, and are burnt off in autumn. If the first, or running, fire acts well, everything will be consumed save trunks and heavy branches, when the latter are lopped off, the trunks rolled together, and the whole slowly burnt up in heaps. The cost of clearing and burning off bush land, so that grass seed or wheat may be sown on the ashes, varies from £3 to £5 per acre. The ugly stumps remain in the land about four years, when the smaller ones may be torn out with a pair of good bullocks and a strong stump chain, and the lighter lands of this description made roughly ploughable.

Bush Land is richer soil than either Fern or Grass Land; and for small dairy and garden farms, where there is family hand labour at command, or for hop grounds, orchards, kitchen gardens, or home paddocks, bush land is best; while looking at its value for timber fencing-stuff and fuel, at the shade and shelter it affords, at the increased beauty it gives the scenery, everyone, in buying a lot of land, likes to have a portion of it, say a fourth or a fifth, Bush land. But the process of first clearing and cultivating it is, comparatively, so slow and laborious, that nine-tenths of all our agricultural operations are, as yet, carried on on Fern and Grass land.

DRAINAGE. – Here and there, as on the rich low-lying seaboard of the Canterbury Plains, and in the little manure-bed Raupo Swamps and alluvial bottoms found in all districts, the agricultural Lands of New Zealand are improvable by drainage; but, speaking generally, they may be called Lands where, owing to

the combined operation of porous subsoil, sunny breezy atmosphere, hilly undulating surface, and countless brooks and streams, the drainage is so good by nature as to need little improvement from art.

FENCING. – Near the forests, the cheapest fencing is the split post and rail; but the commonest fence is the 6 ft. ditch and 3 ft. bank, or a smaller ditch and bank with light post and rail, and sometimes furze at top, while stout galvanised wire fencing is now coming into general and economical use. Furze is a nasty straggling thing, but it grows with great quickness, and in these rude days is found useful in the open country both as fence and breakwind. Quick also grows well in some of the provinces, but it is subject to blight, and is not so commonly used as the more humble furze. For home-field fences, the wild rose, broom, geranium, and two or three of the native plants are sometimes mixed with furze, and form fences of great beauty impervious to man or beast. In the North Island, however, perhaps the best live fence will eventually be formed by that quick-growing vegetable bulwark the Osage orange: the plant has been introduced into some of the New Zealand nurseries, and, after many inquiries, I find that the seed may be had at Carter's, 238, Holborn.

The cost of fencing varies considerably, according to the nearness of timber and the easy-digging character of the soil. I have known it done for 12s. a chain; but perhaps the present average cost of the larger ditch and bank would be about 15s., and of the smaller, with light post and rail at top, about 20s. a chain – the expense of parti-fencing being borne by the two proprietors.

FARM BUILDINGS. – As yet, there are not many mansions in New Zealand. Here and there, on the estates of colonists of ten and twelve years' standing, a handsome house and homestead, with all things fitting, will be found; but, at first, small capitalist families going on land, wisely content themselves with putting up a dwelling of some temporary, make-shift character – generally a building of the rough verandah-cottage order, in which they may enjoy robust health and much comfort until a good part of the little estate is cleared and fenced, cropped and stocked, and they have earned the right of treating themselves to a residence and out-buildings more commensurate with their annually-improving circumstances and their independent landed-proprietor position. A substantial wooden verandah cottage of this order may cost from £150 to £200; a good raupo cob or clay building from £50 to £70; but these smaller, more humble erections are frequently put up wholly or in part by the settlers themselves, when their cost in paid-away cash is next to nothing, for there is little or no labour to pay for, and the materials lie free at hand.

I may here, too, just hint that any family going on Land, would

do well to add to their outfit a small box of carpenter's tools – not the flimsy gimcracks, glittering in what are called "Emigrant's Tool Chests," but such strong useful things as are enumerated in my work on New Zealand. I, myself, took lessons in the noble art of Carpentry for six months before I went to New Zealand, and can assure the reader that a few good tools, and the rough ability to use them, which Paterfamilias and the boys soon pick up, will be found singularly useful in the many little jobs of building and construction which have to be done in the work of converting even a small bit of New Zealand wild land into a New Zealand farm.

ROADS. – PROXIMITY OF MARKETS. – Within a radius of from 20 to 30 miles of most of the nine provincial capitals, the main roads of the colony are now pretty good; but as we advance further inland, the roads are still often little more than rough tracks, studded, in wet weather, with many a mud-pit and slough of despond; and, generally, we might say that the tractive power which would draw two tons at home would not draw more than one in New Zealand.

Owing, however, to the peculiarly lengthy configuration of the country, giving it a coast line of more than 3,000 miles, with a breadth varying from 50 to 200; owing to the excellent system, on which a large portion of the cultivable land has been surveyed and laid out, and to the number of shipping places found in almost every district, agricultural and pastoral produce requires, comparatively, but little cartage in New Zealand to convey it to some port, or inland creek, or river-planted market; so we may say that if the interior roads are bad they are not both bad and long.

LABOUR. – IMPLEMENTS. – MACHINERY. – Here, at last, among the many great natural agricultural advantages enjoyed by New Zealand, we come to the sole thing which has any tendency to check the rapid progress of the plough; and this, the comparative "dearness of hand labour" is an evil far less practically formidable than would generally be supposed. The present rate of farm labour varies from 5s. to 6s. a-day; but assuming, as we safely may, that by "assisted passages" and "free grants" New Zealand wisely continues to attract population to her shores, and that no large portion of her labour force be absorbed by permanent gold fields. 55 I incline to think, taking an average of the next ten years, that the price of farm labour will not be found to exceed 5s., and may possibly be as low as 4s. a-day. This,, even, is double the English price; but, in overbalancing per contra, we must remember that the New Zealand cultivator has no penny of rent, tax, or tithe, to pay. Again, operating as he

is, on fresh virgin land where seed, soil, and climate, alone, almost produce the crop, the additional stimulant of labour proves so powerful a stimulant that the effect of two labourers on a New Zealand farm is probably as great as that of three on an English farm, where their labour is expended on a long-used, dry-squeezed, partially, exhausted soil.

Nevertheless, this higher price of labour, comparatively little as in actual practice it may be felt, forms an additional reason why the New Zealand Estate should generally be devoted, say, in the proportion of three-fourths, to sheep-grazing, stock-breeding, and dairy-farming, having the remainder, only, in corn: an additional reason why the New Zealand Agriculturist should arm himself with the best labour-saving tools and implements, and the best of the simpler forms of our agricultural machinery. Indeed, so necessary is this that though, as a general rule, in emigrating to New Zealand, a man cannot well take too much "money" and too few "things;" yet anyone now moving to New Zealand with the settled Plan of purchasing Land and creating a little Estate, by Plough and Fleece, should not fail to provide themselves with one or two of Howard's famous Ploughs and Harrows as packed in small compass for exportation by the London Office of the House, at 4, Cheapside.

ARABLE CROPS. – Wheat: For "certainty of crop," so far as this may arise from rarity of blight or climatic injuries, for good harvested condition of crop, and fair average yield, New Zealand will, one day, rank high among the wheat growing countries of the world. Wheat is best sown in May or June, the months answering to our English November and December. 50 and 60 bushels per acre are occasionally obtained; I have myself, on a small piece of "light bush" land, had nearly 70; and, if common fair farming were practised, the soil and climate would, I think, be found quite equal to the general production of 30. But the present average yield of the wheat crop of New Zealand cannot certainly be estimated at more than three quarters per acre – a yield, though, one-third greater than that of Australia, and one too, obtained where good tillage of soil, with due rotation of crop, are conditions of good husbandry very generally neglected; and where, indeed, the cultivator appears, often, to labour under the impression that when he has once broken up the new land, and cast down the seed his work is done.

Barley and Oats, though liable on new Lands to be attacked by a ravaging caterpillar, sadly needing the attentions of the English finch and sparrow, are grown with great success. Fine samples of the Norfolk Chevalier Barley, first introduced, I think, by my brother and myself, are now seen in the markets; while our Lincolnshire Poland Oat has been grown at Taranaki weighing the almost incredible weight of 50 lbs. the bushel. I may here remark, too, that as frequent change of seed is good practice in New Zealand, any one going out to engage in agricultural pursuits would do well to procure among his farming

friends peck or bushel samples of any particularly fine wheat, oats, barley, or grass seeds, for which their localities might be famous. All seeds should be put up (dry) in bags, and then be enclosed in some zinc-lined case or cask.

Pulse Crops. – These, as yet, have been but little grown. Judging, however, by their luxuriance in the garden there is no doubt that when an improved system of agriculture shall call for a greater variety and alternation of crop, peas and beans will be grown as successfully as anything else.

Root Crops. – Potatoes, next to wheat, have hitherto been the most common crop in New Zealand. They are generally set in the North Island in September; but the Canterbury and Otago agriculturists prefer planting a month later. The quality of potatoes is so fine that the Irishman might go to New Zealand to taste them, and the crop is a certain one. On common lands, without manure, 5 and 6 tons per acre is a fair yield; but I remember that on the rich bush soil of a portion of my brother's little farm in Taranaki 12 tons per acre were occasionally obtained.

Turnips, Carrots, Parsnips, Onions, and all root and vegetable crops, are very prolific, and of fine quality. From 25 to 30 tons per acre of turnips is not an uncommon yield. Incredible as it may seem, nearly 40 cwt. of the white Altringham carrot (nearly 150 tons per acre) 56 have been obtained from two rods of ground; 300 lbs. of onions (nearly 25 tons per acre), have been obtained from one rod of ground; carrots of 9 lbs. weight have been exhibited at Canterbury Horticultural Shows, and cabbages weighing 50 lbs. have been grown in Otago.

Hops. – A few acres of hops have been grown, and have answered well, particularly at Nelson. The sorts introduced, however, have often been of inferior quality; and any agricultural emigrant from our hop counties would do well to carry with him cuttings of the finest varieties of his district. Brewing is certain to grow into a considerable business, and to create a large and profitable demand for hops.

Grass Crops and Pastures. – New Zealand is perhaps even a finer country for Grass than for Grain; and about 300,000 acres have already been seeded down. A small portion of this, largely-increasing, area consists of meadow land mown for hay, for although dry winter food is not necessary for stock, a little good hay is relished by cattle and horses, and bay is now being required for livery and stable purposes in the towns. Nine-tenths, however, of the grass lands are lands which have been seeded

down into permanent pasture – for the further experience of every year is showing us that the following remarks, made some years ago now, by Mr. Weld, one of New Zealand's most practical Shepherd Princes, are substantially true.

"In no country do artificial grasses thrive and flourish more luxuriantly than in New Zealand, and by their cultivation, and by fencing, and in some cases by draining, the capabilities of a given area of good land to maintain stock might be increased tenfold. With greater abundance of capital and labour, and considering the increasing value of land, I have no doubt that the system of laying down wild lands in grass will, year by year, be more extensively and profitably adopted; for there is much of the land in New Zealand which, when cultivated, grassed, and fenced, will keep eight sheep an acre, all the year round, and be proportionately good for Cattle."

Mr. Weld is here speaking of our "best" Lands – but there are millions of acres in New Zealand which, laid down in large paddock pastures, would, the year through, carry five sheep to the acre.

The only point, indeed, on which there is now any substantial difference of opinion in New Zealand on the great question of Paddocks and Grazing versus Runs and Squatting, is that of the best mode, and the first cost, of getting the Paddocks – here, indeed, doctors still differ; but the majority of our most practical men would now, I think, endorse the following propositions: –

1. That the question of the mode and cost of converting wild lands into farm-pastures turns, mainly, on the point of whether it be necessary to break up and till the land, or whether the seed may be sown on the rough unbroken surface.

2. That unquestionably, there are portions of all open-country districts where, owing to certain peculiarities of soil, surface and indigenous vegetation, the land must be cleared, ploughed, and worked for grass seed. But, that in almost all open-country districts there is a breadth of land where, say, after a little slashing-down and burning-off work, and a rough surface-fraying harrowing, grass seeds may be sown at once, in strips or bands, and be safely left to spread over the whole surface, to take full possession of the soil, and to turn themselves, quickly, into good permanent Pasture. 57

3. That on the first description of land, where the soil might have to be regularly cleared, ploughed, and worked, the expense (including seed and fencing) of converting wild open-land into 50 and 100 acre paddocks might perhaps be put down, taking one district with another, at about £3 per acre; 58 while on the second description of land, where burning, harrowing, seed, and fence would comprise the chief outlay, and reckoning on some aid from the process named in the note below, 59 large paddock pastures in New Zealand could now be created from the wild land at an expense of from 30s. to £2 per acre.

LIVE STOCK. – Sheep and Cattle have been described at pages 114 and 117. The Horse in New Zealand, like the Sheep and Ox, is mainly the progeny of importations from the Australian continent; and the Horse, like the Sheep and Ox, and like every living creature, from cat to man, transplanted from Australia to New Zealand, has grown to be a bigger animal in his island home. The New Zealand Horse, however, has been vastly improved by the pretty free introduction of some of the best blood of the English turf. Many years ago, on the occasion of my first expedition to New Zealand, a fellow-passenger (the Hon. Henry Petre) took out two thorough-breds for stud purposes, and his example has since been so well followed by other spirited colonists that, if the length of the Epsom course were doubled, there are now New Zealand Horses which might run a very fair race for the Derby.

On the turf, indeed, young New Zealand is quite a chip of

the old block. Well-conducted annual races take place in most of the chief settlements; while the Nelson men, who for horses may be called New Zealand's Yorkshiremen, no longer content to carry off the blue ribbon at home, have gone forth to seek fresh victories in Australia. A few years ago, at the Sydney "Home-Bush" Races (the Epsom of Australia), two New Zealand mares, Zoe and Zingari carried off the honours of the day; and their spirited owner, Mr. Redwood, of Nelson, who had taken over these specimens of New Zealand blood to New South Wales (a voyage of 1,200 miles), was entertained at a public dinner by the Sydney turfites in honour of the event. Again, once at the Australian Champion Races, held at Melbourne, where eighteen horses started for the "Champion Stakes," Strop, a Nelson horse, carrying 10st. 4, came in fourth – the distance, over a rough heavy course, being 3 miles, the time nearly 6 minutes, and the value of the stakes nearly £3,000. For the second event, however, the "Melbourne Handicap," another Nelson horse, Camden, came in first and won his party several thousand pounds.

Australia, too, is running a good race with New Zealand in the matter of blood stock, as my Sporting Readers will, I am sure, be gratified to see by the following remarks of the Pall Mall Gazette, copied by the Times of June 28th: –

BLOOD STOCK IN AUSTRALIA. – A wonderful sale of racing stock is reported to have taken place in Australia, which throws even Mr. Blenkiron's last and greatest success into the shade. Some years since Mr. Hurtle Fisher, who lives near Melbourne, at Maribyrnong, imported from this country a number of our best horses and mares; among them Mr. Parr's Fisherman and Mr. Hawke's Marchioness. On the 10th of last April the Maribyrnong stud was sold by auction. Forty-three horses, of which nine were yearling colts and eight unweaned filly foals, fetched £26,305, rather more than £600 each. The nine yearlings fetched 5,055 guineas – 502 guineas each; 11 horses and mares in training. 11,540 guineas – 1,049 guineas each; 14 brood mares, 7,080 guineas – 506 guineas each; and eight unweaned filies, 2,110 guineas – 263 guineas each. A four-year-old colt by Fisherman – Marchioness, fetched 3,600 guineas.

The number of Horses increased from 30,000, in 1861, to upwards of 60,000 by the end of 1865.

PIGS. – Of English sty-fed Pigs and native tame-kept Pigs, the number, altogether, is very great. Wild Pigs, too, though the cover is so thick and the creature so shy that few of them are seen, so abound in certain remote wild bush districts as to have led us to imagine that New Zealand must have been the teeming country which happy Hood had in his eye when he wrote –

"There is a land of pure delight,
Where omelets grow on trees,
And roasted pigs come crying out,
'Oh, eat me, if you please I'"

The animal fattens kindly, and produces hams and flitches equal, I think, to any I ever saw at-home. The editor of one of the New Zealand papers – turning for the moment from Brutus

and Public Virtue to Pork – lately told the world that "five large Pigs were killed at Wellington this week, the smallest of which, when cleaned, weighed nearly a quarter of a ton."

Prices of Corn and Wool. – By the admirable New Zealand "Blue Book" for 1864, just forwarded to me by that able Officer of the New Zealand Government, J. B. Bennett, Esq., Registrar-General, the wholesale export prices of the Agricultural and Pastoral Produce snipped from New Zealand in that year were as follows: –

£ s. d.

Wheat

0 6 0

per bushel.

Oats

0 4 0

"

Barley

0 5 0

"

Potatoes

4 0 0

per ton.

Wool

0 14

per lb.

These figures, I apprehend, represent the shipping value of the produce at the port – not the prices obtained by the cultivator from the merchant. These figures, however, are satisfactory, even so regarded; while looking at the growing "home" demand, and at the increasing populations of the great cities of Melbourne and Sydney, 60 I think we may safely say that during the next ten years the four great arable crops will, on the average, bring the New Zealand farmer fully the following prices: – Wheat, 6s.; barley, 5s.; oats, 4s.; and potatoes, £4 per ton. Wool comes under quite another category, and, looking at the increasing demand in Europe for good wool clothing, 61 the New Zealand grazier, on the average of the next

ten years, is far more likely, I think, to make 1s. 6d or 1s. 9d. per lb. of the golden fleece than 1s. 3d or 1s. 4d.

PRESENT AVERAGE PRICES OF STOCK, DAIRY PRODUCE, &C. –

Prime Breeding ewes per head

20s. to 25s.

Fat wethers per head

20s. to 25s.

Pat oxen per head

£12 to £15

Store stock per head

£5 to £8

Working steers per pair

£25 to £35

Horses, ranging for the most part between

£25 to £40

Fat pigs per lb., live weight

3d. to 4d.

Butter, fresh per lb.

1/6 to 1/9

Butter, salt per lb.

1/ to 1/3

Bacon per lb.

8d. to 10d.

Milk (near towns) per quart

3d.

Eggs per dozen

1/6 to 2/0

Fowls, ducks, turkeys, geese, easily reared but little attended to, and near the towns fetching excessive prices.

Garden produce: fruits, honey, peas, beans, onions, carrots, &c, &c, easily raised, but little attended to, and near the towns fetching high prices

Hay: good grass or oaten hay, near the towns per ton

£6 to £8

N. B. – Occasionally in Sydney and Melbourne hay is £15 and £20 per ton.

With respect to these prices and the probability of their continuance I would offer the following remarks: –

As to Ewes, bearing in mind that a large portion of New Zealand can be laid down in pastures at a small first cost – that such pastures might well sustain 30,000,000 of sheep – that in all human probability, as shown by the note at page 133, there will be a steady and increasing European demand for wool – that the gradual abandonment of "squatting" for "grazing," is a change which has commenced, and which will go on spreading just as surely as seed spreads into plant – bearing these things in mind, we may, I think, safely conclude that, for the next decade, prime breeding ewes in New Zealand will be worth a pound per head.

As to Wethers, fat Wethers, prime fat Wethers, there is some difference of opinion. It may be that moved by my prodigious advocacy, by the Panama Route, and by other causes and attractions, most of the emigrant world will soon be moved to go to New Zealand, when legs of mutton, there, might fetch a shilling a pound. Or, it may be that most of the emigrant world will not be moved this way, and that when we have the fat pastures

in New Zealand which we shall have, fat Wethers may multiply so fast there as almost to crowd out the Men. So grave a matter, however, must not be treated in this light style; and, returning to that befitting frame of mind which the subject demands, I would say that for many years to come there is every probability of our having good meat markets in New Zealand through and by the rapid increase of our New Zealand born, and our Immigrant, population – that more unlikely things have happened to Sheep than that prime New Zealand Wethers may some day grace the butchers' shops of Melbourne and Sydney – that mutton hams are not bad – that bountiful science may discover means of converting some of the finest meat in the world, New Zealand mutton, into some preparation of dry preserved meat which would prove a cheap dainty to the half-starved millions of Europe – and, that if the worst comes to the worst, and we have to "boil down," 62 the New Zealand Wether will be found a most substantial, respectable animal, whose weight of tallow, whose skin and many-crop fleece, will allow him to "boil" in peace, in debt to no man, and to leave his Grazier copiously compensated for his keep.

At to Cattle, looking at the great development of which Dairy Farming is capable – at the great demand which must arise for working oxen as the plough gets more into work – at the possibility of a beef-curing, ship-provision, Export Trade springing up – there appears to me to be no reason to suppose that the above-named prices will, for the next few years, suffer any material reduction.

As to Dairy produce, glancing at the increasing population of New Zealand – at the large and increasing tonnage of shipping annually entering the ports – at the fine markets found in the great neighbouring cities of Melbourne and Sydney – the New Zealand cultivator, or rather his wife and daughters, may, I think, safely calculate on dairy produce maintaining, on the average, for some years, the almost extravagant prices standing in the above quotations.

New Zealand's Three Model Farms. – Bearing in mind the various facts set forth in the preceding pages, and remembering that a great "Pastoral Revolution," turning Squatters into Graziers, is surely at hand, I think we may venture to predict that the greater part

of the agricultural industries of New Zealand will, eventually, be carried on in, and represented by, three chief sorts or classes of farms, which may be named the "Garden Farm," the "Mixed Farm," the "Great Grass Farm."

The first will often be one of from 50 to 100 acres, lying on the skirts of some rising town or village, and its proprietor often some industrious ex-labourer or mechanic, or retired tradesman, invalid emigrant, or professional man – farming either for profit and a living, or partly for pleasant variety and occupation. Here, there will be "fine orchard and kitchen-garden, two or three corn-fields, and a couple of good paddocks; and here the live stock will be pigs and poultry, half-a-dozen dairy cows, and often a few good sheep.

The "Mixed Farm" will be one of from 200 to 500 and 1000 acres, and its proprietor, frequently some old-country agriculturist, or other small-capitalist emigrant, who with his family will do a share of the farm work. Here, about one-third or one-fourth of the land will be devoted to corn and root and hay crops, and the remainder to pasture; and here there will be a good dairy, a score or two of cattle, and a good flock of well-bred sheep.

The great "Grass Farm" will be an estate of from 2000 to 3000 and 5000 acres, and here the proprietor will frequently be one of the present Squatters, or one of the numerous capitalist emigrants now moving to New Zealand. Here there will be a little corn and hay land, with plenty of space left for garden, orchard, shrubberies, shelter, and may be for game cover; but, here, four-fifths of the wild land will gradually have been converted into 50 and 100 acre paddocks, where will be seen a splendid flock of merinos, with here and there some heavier sheep, often a little stud of blood horses, and a herd of choice cattle.

Profits of Farming and Grazing. – In the foregoing remarks, sufficient data and particulars have, I hope, been given to enable attentive Readers to form a fair

idea of the profits and advantages now to be realized by emigrating to New Zealand, and engaging there in agricultural and pastoral pursuits. It is my deliberate opinion, and one, I think, which nine Colonists in ten would endorse, that if, as we fairly ought, we count the actual value of the property created, the improved social position of the family, and the brighter prospects of the children, any sum, from £500 to £5,000, or £10,000 to £20,000, could now be employed in grazing and farming and estate-creating in New Zealand in such a manner as, at the expiration, say, of ten years, should exhibit "results" at least twice as good as those which, with an equal capital and in an equal period, could now be worked out by the most active, energetic man, farming and grazing in any county of the Mother Country, from the Land of Cakes to the Land's End.

Concluding Remarks on Estate-creating. – Though it will be seen that the substance of a portion of the following observations was given at page 107, yet the point discussed is so practically important, and I think so encouraging to Embryo-Emigrants, that I will e'en touch on it again. In England, where we have a minute subdivision of labour and employment, farming and grazing, for the most part, are businesses carried on only by farmers and graziers, just as professions are carried on by professional men, and shopkeeping by retail traders. But, in New Zealand, it is not so. There, the common desire of mankind for land, for "acres of one's own," and the almost equally common desire for a rural life, 63 are so easily gratified, and there, too, farming and grazing are such simple, easily-learned pursuits, that, sooner or later, almost all members of the community are found to engage in them. In New Zealand, and, indeed, in all the colonies which I have

seen, full half of all the agricultural and pastoral business of the country is carried on by men who had no knowledge whatever of such business before they emigrated. Half the finest estates in Canada, the Capo Colony, Australia, and New Zealand, have been created by such men as retired officers, ex-professional men, and men originally belonging to the trading and commercial classes of the Mother Country; while many of the most successful of the smaller cultivators, proprietors of the prettiest 50 and 100-acre farms, originally landed in colonies as mechanics, shopkeepers and artizans.

In New Zealand, too, it is no uncommon circumstance to find families with two strings to their bow; that is, families who, while employing themselves partly in some other pursuit, will buy land and do a little in the way of farming and grazing. Thus, the mechanic working at his trade, the Storekeeper attending to the Store, will frequently have his 50 or 100 acres near at hand, on which he, or some of the working force of his family, will find pleasantly-varied and profitable employment for a day or two in the week; and, thus, the professional man, the public-office man, the capitalist, while attending to the light duties of their occupations, or looking out for snug investments at 10 and 12 per cent., will frequently be found to be men who as partners, or in their own persons, or in those of some relatives or sons, are connected with, if not directly engaged in, Agricultural and Pastoral Pursuits, and men, too, who are often pretty large proprietors of land.

I state these facts to disabuse my readers of any erroneous impression which they might form, that though they would like the "rural life" in New Zealand, they would not be successful in it because they had had no prior experience of it at-home. No doubt an intelligent Scotch or English agriculturist would set to work on wild land in a colony with more confidence than the man who scarce knew beans from barley; but the old country farmer, accustomed as he

has been to a plethora of cheap labour, to the refinements of chemical manures, to a high tillage "garden" sort of farming, has often a great deal to unlearn when he gets to work in the New World; and practical experience in all colonies, from Canada down to the Cape, from the Cape to Australia and New Zealand, proves that, in new countries, agricultural and pastoral pursuits are quite as successfully embarked in by emigrants of all classes as by the particular few who have been accustomed to such pursuits at home.

Though, however, a knowledge of farming and grazing as practised in the old country is not a necessary and not even a very valuable qualification for the successful conduct of such pursuits in a colony, there is one qualification which families who may think of emigrating to New Zealand with the view of purchasing land and creating a little estate by plough and fleece must ever possess, and that is, not the ability and willingness to become hewers of wood and drawers of water for life, but the ability and willingness to use their own hands for awhile in work of field and house.

The day will come in New Zealand when we shall see our gentlemen farmers and our country squires riding round their properties on their bits of blood, and doing enough in only directing the labour they employ. But in these more primitive times when farm-labour is 5s. a-day, when domestic servants are scarce and costly, and when every one – high and low – works a bit and finds himself all the better, all the less "Banting," all the lighter and brighter, for it, the emigrant-family, be they who they may, small capitalists or large, going to New Zealand with the design of going on land, must go prepared – master and mistress, sons and daughters – not only to "look after" the high-priced labour they employ, but to bear a hand themselves in the varied, the varied and pleasing, work which out of doors, and indoors is ever going on.

If, only, capitalists and small capitalists going to New Zealand will go prepared to do this for awhile, and to laugh at the little "roughings" and make-shifts of

their first "settling down," it is but sober truth to say that in all human probability they will in a few years place themselves and their families in a position of comfort and independence in New Zealand – a position based on the possession of that safest of all properties, landed property – which it would have been a mere idle dream to have hoped to attain by faint-hearted clinging to the Old World.

Having thus discussed the great Rural Industries of the young Colony, let us turn to the other "Pursuits and Occupations" in New Zealand, now, open to the various orders of Emigrants who may think of making a new and better "Home" there.

The remarks offered on this Subject must, however, be brief – for, in the first place, I see that my space is nearly exhausted; and, secondly, as agricultural and pastoral Pursuits, leading to the acquisition of snug Farms and good landed Estates, are the Pursuits in which, wholly or in part, most orders of the New Zealand community ultimately engage, all other callings and avocations are but of secondary or subordinate importance, and need only be glanced at, here, as the frequent "stepping-stones" to the kingly Plough and the "Golden Fleece."

MINING AND AURIFEROUS INDUSTRIES.

Various ores and minerals have been found in New Zealand, and it is quite probable that others will be discovered as the Country becomes more opened up by settlement. The slight search hitherto made has been confined to a few spots; and, in regard to what her mineral kingdom may ultimately give forth, New Zealand, even yet, except in gold, is little more than the "Terra incognita" of Cook. Indeed, accidental discovery, rather than settled search, seems ever to have

revealed the world's precious ores; while they have sometimes lain, undetected, for years under our very eyes. After twenty years' occupation of the Country, the upsetting of a dray revealed the copper lodes, and created Adelaide's "Burra-burra:" hundreds of shepherds roamed the plains of Victoria for a quarter of a century, little dreaming that they walked on Gold; and though no Country can have less need of mineral wealth than New Zealand, a few years more may prove her to be as rich below the surface as she is above, and on, it.

With the signal exception of Gold, however, none of the discovered New Zealand minerals can be said to have been worked – nor do I regard this at all as a matter for regret. It seems to me that with millions of acres equal, under good farming, to the average production of thirty bushels of wheat per acre, and with millions of acres equal to the support of millions of fine-wool sheep, all lying waste and wild, New Zealand's most legitimate Pursuits, in these, her early days, are the Plough and the Fleece; and that when the Waste has become the Farm, when hill and valley are dotted with Merino and Shorthorn, it will be time enough to take the "Pick," and to leave the certain surface to adventure, sometimes with Colonial Dousterswivels, into the, oft-times, dark and dangerous pits and traps of mines and mining. 64

Gold-Mining, however, when the results are such as have been obtained in New Zealand, 65 is not to be sneered at, even by growers of the "golden fleece;" and

for such men as our coal and copper mining people, our stout mechanics and labourers, or strong-backed adventurous young fellows who could wield the pick, or form the escort, or keep the store, the New Zealand gold fields might now offer an opening which it would be hard to match. We must remember that they lie in a country where the climate for eight months in the year is all that could be wished – that, owing to the narrowness of the island and its great seaboard, the New Zealand digger can never be very far from stores and towns, that though some of the "Knights of the Pick," half Navvy, half Bandit in look, are as rough as they seem to be, yet that many of them are men of education and respectability, and that a quiet cheerful person at the Diggings, who could take his own part, if need arose, might soon make himself quite at-home there; while we have to bear in mind, that if the "pick" failed, or he tired of it, there would be the farm, the sheep station, the mechanic's shop, at hand, offering him constant employment, and pay double or treble that which he would get in the old country.

MERCANTILE PURSUITS AND STOREKEEPING.

Import and Export Trade supports a considerable number of mercantile and branch mercantile Houses. I am not prepared to say that there are, or that there are not, more openings at the present time in New Zealand for active commercial men trading on their own account, or for representatives of English Houses, establishing Agencies in the Colony. Merchants are but the mere "mediums of conveyance" between Producers and Consumers, and generally rise up in sufficient number for the wants of the community just as surely as water rises to its level. Capitalist emigrants, however, of a commercial turn, might bear in mind that in these days even, the annual export and import trade of New Zealand, with her handful of less.

than 200,000 Colonists actually amounts to above £10,000,000 and that this Trade has increased five-fold in the last ten years.

Shopkeeping, or "Storekeeping," as it is called, is a flourishing pursuit; and dozens of little coast and river; ports and inland villages are being planted or enlarged over the country where an active family, with a few hundreds, might do exceedingly well in it. They would form a connection with some mercantile House at the nearest chief port: open a general Store like an English village shop (the one where you get hats, boots, bonnets, shawls, shovels, sugar, tea, trousers, turnip-seed, pickles, gingerbread, and Jew's harps); buy up a little farm and dairy produce for shipment to the chief port; and not unfrequently, as before observed, would own a bit of land handy to their place of business, and thus, in bye times, do a little on the soil.

Besides Storekeeping too, there are other pursuits of a trading or semi-trading nature, capable, I think, of great development and extension in New Zealand. Brewing has been commenced with success; and, looking at the "cold-night" climate, the profusion of soft water, the fine malting barley and fair hops, of the country, and at the immense demand for pale ales in the near Australian markets, brewing will probably become a large and profitable branch of industry.

The Building Trade too, has paid and will long continue to pay famous profits; while active Shipbuilders, with a few hundreds to start with, would find that the increasing fleet of coasting and colonial-going cutters, schooners, and small craft, would give them plenty of work. The Whale Fishery, also, might be very greatly extended; while, as capital and skill flow into the country, and steam power and water-mill come to be multiplied, the Timber Trade, both for the home and the export market is certain to grow into a considerable business. The two Islands probably contain 10,000,000 of acres of forest land of the heaviest description, affording every variety and size of timber needed for house and ship building; and it is worthy

of remark that New Zealand is almost the only country south of the equator which grows any good free working woods of the pine character.

MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES, &C.

At present, New Zealand does but little in Manufacturing Industry – like all young communities she finds it easier, in these her early days, to Import than to Make.

Looking at the abundance of water-power, however; at the growing abundance of many raw materials for manufactures, such as wool, hemp, skins, hides, barks, tallow, &c, and at the rapidly-increasing population, I incline to think that New Zealand will commence various branches of manufacturing industry at a much earlier period of her existence than has been usual in British Colonies.

A few small Foundries and Tanneries, and some infant Cloth and Rope Works have been established with fair measure of success; and these are all industries capable of great extension as population goes on increasing and capital and labour flow in. The Phormium Tenax too, or wild flax, affording the strongest vegetable fibre known, and from which fibres actually 13 feet in length have been drawn; but a plant which, owing to the difficulty of freeing it from a certain parasitical, clogging gum, has hitherto baffled all experimentalists and defied the batteries both of chemistry and mechanics, is now, it is said, to be subdued by the simple process of boiling it in sea or salt water, so that the Colony may ultimately find an additional staple export in "Flax and Hemp."

PROFESSIONAL PURSUITS.

I would certainly not advise any professional man, doing even moderately well at-home, to move to New

Zealand in the hope of doing better there solely by the practice of his profession. Many professional men, however, civil and military, tempted, by the combination of fineness of climate, goodness of society, high rate of interest, and the field for children – men having large and increasing families, with small or decreasing incomes – have settled in New Zealand, and many more will follow their example.

The Law, in New Zealand, exhibits the alarming spectacle of barrister and attorney rolled into one. There is a good deal of buying and selling going on, and a fair amount of simple agreement and conveyancing work, together with a little sessions and assize business; and what with this and the many little public offices which are created as colonisation extends, and which Lawyers often fill, and what with the opportunities they have of cultivating a little land, of investing any spare hundreds in sheep, or of becoming partners in farm or run, the Profession, though happily not prominent in New Zealand, is thriving and respectable, and manages to secure its oyster without reducing the public to the shell. As some encouragement, too, for the Junior Bar, I may perhaps mention that a gentleman with whom I have the honour of being distantly connected, and whose abandonment of Chancery Lane for New Zealand might, perhaps, in some slight degree, be attributable to me, embraced public life on his arrival in the Colony, and now adorns the New Zealand Bench as one of my Lords the Judges.

As to the medical profession, we may say that New Zealand is so healthful a country that, save for the constant arrival of young Colonists, Doctors would have nothing to do. Many excellent medical men though, with families, and a thousand or two, and more, have settled in New Zealand. As a class they are men shrewdly sensible of the advantages of health, and the apparently paradoxical circumstance of so many Doctors going to a country where there are so few Patients, may, perhaps, be accounted for on the supposition that partly to secure fine climate they sacrifice considerations of pro-

fessional gain. In New Zealand, too, as in most young colonies, the Medical Man seldom relies wholly, or even; mainly, on his profession. He may add a hundred or so a-year to his income by attending fair Colonists, and setting the broken arm; but, like Retired Officer, Younger Son, old Indian, or man of the Law, he generally gets his "bit of land," and becoming often a very popular and successful agriculturist or stock-breeder, employs himself and family, chiefly or partly, in the gradual creation of a little Estate.

Commissioned Military and Naval Officers, leaving the Service in order to settle in New Zealand, obtain, without respect to Grade, a Free Grant of 400 acres in the Provinces of Auckland and Taranaki; and, both in regard to their own high merits and to their usefulness in that admirable "Defence Force" which New Zealand is raising, are most popular and useful Colonists.

Clergymen, too, with families, and some small means, dissenting ministers, schoolmasters, surveyors, and engineers, though none of these callings offer anything very rich or good in New Zealand, nevertheless, seem to do very well there; and what with their little glebes or their bits of farms, often supplementing professional avocations, appear to enjoy Life; and if they don't grow rich, certainly don't grow poor.

Speaking of Professions, too, and indeed of many Old Country occupations, investments, and employments, it should be recalled to the Reader's recollection that New Zealand is the mere germ of a country in a state of rapid development and progression. Capital, labour,: consumers, customers, clients, patients, will soon, probably, be pouring in; and a man who got settled there now, say on a bit of land where he could live cheaply, might in two or three years find a famous opening for the employment of some particular knowledge, skill, or qualification, which, on his first arrival, would produce him but little, or which, at first, might be altogether as so much dead stock.

INVESTMENTS FOR CAPITAL. SPECULATIONS.

The great majority of capitalist emigrants 66 who go to New Zealand are people who want some active employment for themselves and families, and who, thus generally employ their capital on land. But here and there, and for awhile, at least, a man will sometimes reserve a portion of his capital; and after he has got to know the Colony and its ways, will invest a few hundreds, or a thousand or two, in mortgages or in some money-lending openings at £10 and £12 per cent.

The Reader may fancy that so high a rate of interest could only come from bad security; but if so, he would be wrong. It is evident that in a young and fertile country like New Zealand, nearly as large as Britain, where the population is only that of a first-class British town, and where the fruitful work of colonization is ever going on, there must be a large and legitimate demand for money. And it is equally evident that in such a country as New Zealand, where there is no injurious competition, where the rich first-fruits of a virgin soil are being enjoyed, where there are no taxes, no plush and plumes of society to bleed the purse, and where profits and savings are thus comparatively great, borrowers of money can better afford to pay £10 per cent, to enable them to nurse up and extend their thriving young concerns than borrowers of money at-home can afford to pay £5.

In truth, 10 per cent. cent, is rather a low than a high rate of interest in New Zealand: – a shrewd, active man, planting himself down in any city neighbourhood, and making it his business to advance money, in bill-discounting, in short-term advances, and in other ways, would have no great difficulty in making £30, if

not £50 per cent. This is the sort of usury, however, with which we have nothing to do here, – we are only alluding to a quiet man who wants to invest a few hundreds or thousand on some good mortgage or other security – and, here, the rate of interest, in these days, would be full 10 per cent.

A few hundreds, or a thousand or two, or more, may also be profitably invested in Sheep. The Squatters, as we have seen, have taken up all the Runs, but half of them have not yet stocked-up their Runs; and they will sometimes take a flock of ewes of some town-dweller or Capitalist, on such "sharing terms" as will pay him handsome interest on the money he may so invest.

There are, also, snug Investments to be made by shares in various of the sound little speculations opening up in a young Colony like New Zealand, where everything is in a state of rapid development; and any man with a few thousands, moving, say, to New Zealand partly through health considerations or other private motives, and not wishing or caring to occupy himself actively in any pursuit, could easily purchase some little Suburban Garden Farm for residence and amusement, and after a few months practical experience of our New Zealand Life, could draw his capital, or a portion of it, from the good interest-paying New Zealand Bank, and invest, or employ it in many advantageous ways.

MECHANICAL AND LABOURING INDUSTRIES.

Carpenters, wheelwrights, shipwrights, sawyers, coopers, cabinet-makers, blacksmiths, bricklayers, saddlers, shoemakers, boatmen, farm labourers, shepherds, gardeners, and steady working men of all sorts, and the working sons of all such, and their daughters, the latter, willing for awhile to take service, find constant employment in New Zealand at wages full double, sometimes treble, those which they obtain at

home; and there are thousands of this great order of emigrants in New Zealand who, landing in the Colony ten or a dozen years ago with nothing save strong arms, sober habits, and a few shillings in the purse, are now masters of thriving businesses, or owners of comfortable little freehold farms, and debtors to no man a penny.

CLERKS. – SHOPMEN.

The experience of practical life in all Colonies shows that of all the many classes of the Mother Country who resort to emigration none gain so little by the movement as youths accustomed only to the counter and the desk; and most unquestionably, as a general rule, this order of our community does best to stay at-home. Here and there, however, there will be found among its ranks young men of early country training, or strong country tastes, of bold spirit, and robust physique, to whom desk and counter grow daily less endurable, and who often glance longingly at Colonies and Emigration. And young men of this description who would prove their fitness for emigration by such a test as that of devoting their days for six months (or their evenings for twelve) to the learning of carpentry or some useful handicraft; and who landing in New Zealand with a ten-pound note, would be willing to work with head and hands, willing "to rough it" for awhile, and do their best at anything which might be offered to them, might undoubtedly now go thither assured that the life they would have would be a far more pleasant and congenial one than that of the office or shop, and that after a few years of steady industry they would reach a much better position in the New Land than any they could reasonably hope to reach in the Old.

FEMALE EMIGRATION.

Almost any number of respectable young women now emigrating to New Zealand with parents or brothers,

and taking service for awhile in the families of Colonists, where if they were not treated more as humble friends than servants it would be their own fault, would find excellent situations as cooks, house-maids, nurse-maids, dairy-maids, and maids of all work, at wages treble those which they obtain at-home; while, as there are nearly two single, well-to-do, young men in the colony to one single young woman, the matrimonial prospects of Anne and Alice, would, I presume, be deemed as brilliant as even Anne and Alice could themselves desire. With respect to another most valuable, but far worse requited order of the Mother Country's female community, the "Governess Class," I regret that I cannot speak in so wholesale, so confident, a way. I should be most sorry, even by a word or doubt, to express any premature opinion that Miss Rye's admirable efforts to throw open our Colonies to educated Women will not eventually be as successful as that energetic, philanthropic Lady could herself desire. But, confining ourselves to New Zealand, and speaking of New Zealand as she is in 1866, I must say that1 I do not think that any great emigration of young ladies to the Colony, as Governesses, would now be attended with success. At the same time, I would observe that young persons inclined to accompany friends to New Zealand, the sort who can teach plain things well, and who would make themselves generally useful in a house, might now go there pretty certain of obtaining comfortable situations in the establishments of old-settled Colonists, and pretty certain, too, ere long, of having cradles of their own to rock.

THOSE WHOM NEW ZEALAND DOES NOT WANT.

In a Country almost as large as Great Britain and Ireland, but where, as yet, the entire Population does not exceed that of a single first-class English city, it would perhaps be supposed that the Human Being was so much needed, was so priceless a Being, that any Thing

on two legs would be welcomed as an acquisition there. But this is not the case: valuable, as at 104, I have sought to show that the Human Being really is in New Zealand, there are, nevertheless, a few people who every year make their appearance in New Zealand whom New Zealand, both for their own sakes and for her own, would rather not see, for they are people who almost ever "come to grief" there – who almost ever straggle back to the old country, and whose "reports" of the Land they have failed in frequently prevent good and fit people who would succeed there from venturing thither. The class of people to whom I allude are indicated in the following observations from a little Work of mine on New Zealand: –

THOSE WHO EMIGRATE, BUT WHO WOULD DO BETTER TO STAY AT-HOME. – Such a class of Emigrants undoubtedly exists; but, fortunately, it is a small one. It is composed of three varieties: "de Smythes"' – "Dismal Dummies" – Slow-Fast Gents."

The first are the fastidiously genteel people, of feeble intellect, and of the silver fork and Snob order – people who would prefer a crust and sour claret in the parlour, to roast beef and a tankard in the kitchen: people who regard the Flunkey as an Institution; and who, like the Oxford man, would not save you from drowning because you had not been "introduced." Mr. and Mrs. de Smythe (small d, mind) shrivel up before the great heartiness and manly simplicity of Emigration, and are as much out of place in a Colony as the dancing dog in a fox hunt. 67

"Dismal Dummies," or Grumblers, rather, for the genus is by no means dumb, constitute the second order of Unfit Emigrants. When wheat or wool falls, when trade is less brisk than usual, when gold fields are less prolific, Farmers and Traders and Diggers grumble in New Zealand just as men do in England. Indeed, a certain amount of grumbling seems essential to human felicity, and it would be a most arbitrary interference with the liberty of the subject to interdict any man from grumbling in New Zealand. But the Dismal Dummy, is the man or woman who grumbles always. These Unfortunates generally give the colonial community to understand that they never wished to emigrate – that they were doing well at-home, and were likely to do better; and that it was their friends who over persuaded them to emigrate.

A considerable portion of their daily occupation and amusement is found in abusing the colony, in denouncing their neighbours, in bemoaning their lot. Our towns are villages; our streets are unpaved; there is neither gas nor water-cart; the sun is too brilliant, the sky too blue, the trees too large, the meat too fat, the house not so large as the house they lived in when they kept three servants and visited a family who knew a baronet; and they only wish they were back. This is a wish in which colonists sincerely join; for not only are such Unfortunates grievous bores in little colonial communities, but they really do injury to a colony by invariably writing about it in the "dismal dummy," or sackcloth and ashes strain.

Now the male or female "Dismal" is generally some one who has emigrated reluctantly, some one who has been a sort of pressed emigrant. I would therefore respectfully caution anyone who is not willing to emigrate, to stay at-home; and I would further caution all friends and advisers of such man or woman never to press them to emigrate, but to counsel them to "bear the ills they have rather than fly to those they know not of."

The third variety of our unfit emigrant is the "fast" Gent, the, would be, Howling Swell, the Ne'er-do-well. The Town type of this variety is sketched in a sentence. He is one who has lived fast and gone early to seed, he is known to tailors, and has heard of County Courts, he illustrates casinos, and is loud at the Cider-cellars and the Pic, he haunts night billiard-tables with other small birds of prey, and knows a thing or two at cards, he is far above work, and far beneath it, and lazy as the dog who leaned against the wall to bark. One would scarcely imagine that such a one would ever go to a colony – he does not go, he is sent. When he has exhausted each miserable shift which green credulity offers to his tribe, when fairly "stumped" and tractable, his friends count him down £100; ship him off to Australia, to Africa, to New Zealand, and hope they are quit of him. But no – like a bad bill, he comes back – colonially noted and protested, too, and at great expense to those who issued him.

The army, hotel-touting, billiard-marking, bus-driving, billsticking, street-singing, widow-marrying, many industrial pursuits are open to gentlemen of this stamp in old-world cities – none are open to them in a young colony; and, if they will be warned, they and the other two varieties of "unfit emigrants" will cling limpet-like, to home, and leave bad alone for fear of worse." – "The Britain of the South," (Second Edition).

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

The preceding pages will, I trust, enable Readers glancing at "New Homes," in New Zealand, to form a pretty good idea of what they could do there should they go there. I have, myself, long arrived at the conclusion that when it be a wise and prudent step to emigrate at all, New Zealand is the Country which a wise and prudent man would choose. Indeed, when I remember what a noble field New Zealand now offers to Capital and Labour; when I recall the goodness of Society and Government, the "health-and-strength-giving" character of the Climate, with the real pleasantness and "joyousness" of the New Zealand Colonist's Life; and then look around mo here and mark the thousands of people admirably fitted to succeed in New Zealand, and yet, year by year, sinking from bad to worse, here I am lost in astonishment that even the largely increasing number of New Zealand Emigrants is not much larger than it is; and feel assured that if people would only take heart and believe the real Truth about New Zealand, the present emigration to her shores would be increased fourfold.

Whether to go there, however – whether to stay here – are questions which each one can best answer for himself, and questions, too, on which proffered advice from a Stranger might be an impertinence. But, I may remark, that when Families, contemplating Emigration, are discussing the grave question of "Whether to go, or not to go" and are wisely passing in review the various advantages and drawbacks of a young Country like New Zealand, there is one consideration which they would do well ever to bear in mind, and that is this – that while many of the "ills and evils" of the Old Country, the things we emigrate to escape from, are every year growing greater, many of the "objections" to the Young Country are every year growing less. Despite the asseverations of Brother Jonathan and of his peccant press, 68 despite the facts

forged by Fenians, and the testimony of meagre "Meaghers of the Sword," we, in New Zealand, shall stubbornly persist in believing that Old England has not yet reached the culminating height of her glorious prosperity, her glorious renown. 69 But, surely, he would be a bold man who should assert that such "ills and evils" as Excess of Competition, Squalid Poverty, Pale Pauperism, High Taxation, Prohibitive price of Land, Blighting Battles of Capital and Labour, Difficulty of Planting out Families, &c, &c, are not "ills and evils" far more likely to increase than to decrease in England – whereas the evils or drawbacks we object to in Colonies, such as remoteness of scene, roughness of life, dearness of labour, are every year becoming less – for these things are but as the mere fleeting ailments of a colony's early youth: the summer clouds, passing away as colonial manhood is approached and childish troubles are outgrown.

We see that bountiful Science is every year bringing our Emigration Fields nearer to our doors; that in all of them capital and labour are everywhere subduing the wilderness, planting the town, raising the spire, founding the school. We see that one year in the New Land sometimes marks as great a change, as great an

advance, as twenty years in the Old; that, there, the rate of Progress is so great that we might almost say that the seeming Fiction of to-day becomes the Fact of the morrow; and it appears to me that there is nothing extravagant in the assertion that a young British Colony like New Zealand bids fair to become a Country where, while we may find much of that which makes up the "good" of Britain, we shall find but little of that which makes up the "bad."

And now, repeating here what was said at the commencement, namely, that during my further residence in this Country I shall at all times be happy to give your Readers any further information or advice which they may desire to obtain about New Zealand "Emigration Matters," or about New Zealand generally, and heartily wishing all of them who may go thither all possible success, I bring my humble Paper to a close, and subscribe myself their sincere well wisher,

CHARLES HURSTHOUSE.

P. S. – Here, perhaps, I may offer a word on a little matter relating to myself. From the long time my name has been before the Public in connexion with New Zealand, and from my persistent, though humble,

efforts to promote the cause of "New Zealand Colonisation," it has been thought by some that I must receive certain support or encouragement from the Government of New Zealand, or am connected with the various New Zealand Emigration "Agencies" which have been established in this Country. Nothing, however, can be further from the truth. So far from having any connexion with the Agencies (conducted, some of them, by persons who have never even seen, or little more than seen, New Zealand), I am, I believe, with the exception of the excellent Canterbury one, regarded there with some, quite causeless, jealousy; while as to any support or countenance received from the New Zealand Government – though, perhaps, in helping to direct a large and fructifying stream of capital and labour to New Zealand 70 I have deserved almost as well of her as Colonists who have devoted themselves to her political affairs – no "loaf or fish of office" has ever fallen to my share – though, certainly, none has yet been sought. Possibly, however, when the "Lives of the, early, New Zealand Worthies" come to be written by some Colonial Fuller, the name even of Hursthouse may fill a line of the lustrous page; and the possibility of this, to a highly imaginative Man, might be more precious than any present pudding.

No subject, not rod nor gun, nor essay by Bacon

or Old Montaigne, is now so interesting to me as New Zealand. Some of my happiest years have been passed there – many of my friends and relatives are prosperously and permanently settled there – and I feel that while I can assist in turning to our young Britain of the South those who are fitted to succeed there, I am usefully and honourably, if not profitably, employed; and can afford to say of any small detractors – willing to wound and yet afraid to strike – "Let their tongues wag!"

"NEW ZEALAND CHIPS."

SALMON IN NEW ZEALAND. – Any Brother of the Rod glancing at New Zealand will, I think, be interested by the following extract from a late Field. If little Tasmania with her 50 streams can do so much for the regal fish, New Zealand with her 500 may surely do even more; and it may well be that when some second Leech arises to delight the world he will show us the Salmon "catching Mr. Briggs," not in the Scotch but in the New Zealand river. Mr. Youl writes as follows to the Times: "I have this moment received a telegram from Melbourne, announcing the safe arrival of the Lincolnshire with upwards of 100,000 salmon, sea, and brown trout ova, and bringing also the good news that 40 per cent, of the whole number were hatching in the breeding ponds on the river Plenty, in Tasmania. Your readers will also be glad to learn that the last account received direct from the Hon. R. Officer, the chairman of the Salmon Commissioners, was that at least 2000 salmon fry, varying in size from 9in. to 12in. had left the fresh water and gone to sea, and that there were thriving in the ponds 400 brown trout from 11 in. to 13in. long, the produce of the salmon and trout ova shipped in January, 1864, by the ship Norfolk."

NEW ZEALAND'S POLITICAL PARTIES. – We are not Whigs and Tories in New Zealand, but "Centralists" and "Provincialists," that is, those who regard New Zealand as one great Colony to be governed by one, all-powerful, House of Commons, and those who would cut her up into a dozen little portions, and govern them by a dozen little Provincial Parliaments. So far as a man who would be more interested in a New Zealand Merino, than in a New Zealand Governor's "Queen's Speech," may venture to range himself on any political side in New Zealand, I am a

Centralist – but I gladly admit, after more experience of them, that the "Provincial Councils" form an admirable feature in New Zealand's Constitution, and regret, now, that some hasty-remarks on this subject, which appeared in my Work on New Zealand, should have been penned.

MOISTURE OF THE NEW ZEALAND CLIMATE CONDUCIVE TO HEALTH. – The remarkable "Salubrity" of the New Zealand Climate is said to be owing mainly to its "breezy" character, to the constant motion of the atmosphere; but the following extract from a late Times would warrant the surmise that the great "rain fall" in New Zealand is one cause of the robust health of the Colonists. "The highest death-rate of twelve years, 23, occurred in England with the smallest rainfall of 16-in., in 1864, and the lowest rate, 21, in 1860, with the heaviest rainfall, of 32-in. This may doubtless be accounted for in many ways, but principally by the cleansing influence of the rain during the summer upon the impurities of towns which in dry weather prove so noxious in crowded populations; but it is also very possible that the greater humidity of the air induced by the rain may be useful to all persons suffering from affections of the lungs."

GAME. – As I look on Game, Song Birds, and the smallest of our "Feathered Friends" as among the most valuable of our "Emigrants" from the Mother Country, I chronicle the departure of the following famous Party: – "Game and Small Birds for Wellington, New Zealand. – The ship 'Electra,' left Gravesend on Tuesday, the 17th July, of this year, with the following game birds and other animals, in charge of F. Morgan. They were shipped for Mr. Carter, of Barnsbury, and supplied and packed by Mr. Philip Castang, of Leadenhall-market. Of common pheasants there were twenty-two hens and eight cocks; besides four silver and four gold pheasants; twenty-two red leg and common partridges; a number of hares and wild rabbits; and about two hundred small birds, including blackbirds, thrushes, starlings, robins, larks, greenfinches, and sparrows." – New Zealand Examiner.

THE "COMING" ANIMAL FOR NEW ZEALAND'S LINCOLNSHIRE PASTURES.

THE "COMING" ANIMAL FOR NEW ZEALAND'S LINCOLNSHIRE PASTURES.

Killed by Webb, Butcher, Deptford. Ago 4 years and 9 months. Dead weight per quarter, 67 lbs. Live weight, 364 lbs. Length of Wool, 12 inches. Clipped 4 Fleeces weighing 60 lbs., realizing 2s. per lb. Total "money return" of the animal: 4 Fleeces, 5 Lambs, and Carcass, estimated at £23 10s.

THE LINCOLN LONG-WOOL. – The following letter from the Proprietor of the Branston Flock shows the "Wool-Harvest" reaped from it: –

BRANSTON, NEAR LINCOLN,
July 27th, 1866.

DEAR SIR, – The average weight of my shearling ewe and ram fleeces would be, ewes 13 lbs., rams 15 lbs.; and I think I can produce 300 fleeces averaging 14 lbs. But a fair average would be, for ewes and wethers, 18 lbs. each. My old rams, of course, clip very much more. Their fleeces this year averaged 17 3/4 lbs. each. The price of wool, in the present month, for the last three years has been – in 1864, 2s. 5d. per lb.; 1865, 2s. 2d. per lb.; and 1866, 2s. per lb., for mixed clips, of half hog and half ewe wool. My mixed wool is worth 3d. per lb. more than ewe wool, and at the dearest time, in 1864, was worth 2s. 8 1/2d. per lb. The last clip I sold produced £1 8s. 6d. per fleece, average, for over 600 fleeces. We have this season reared 430 lambs from 350 ewes, and one-and-a-half lamb to the ewe is considered good luck, particularly when one-third of the ewes are shearlings. But even in bad seasons we generally get a lamb to an ewe. and then think it bad luck. The Prize Ewe grazed in the fields until about two months before Christmas, when it was put up and fed. I have now six or eight more nearly as good, but not quite so perfect. They will easily weigh over 60 lbs. per quarter at Christmas next. I enclose you a sample of our hog wool, and remain,

Yours truly,
T. B. MARSHALL.
CHARLES HURSTHOUSE, Esq

The goodly animal here introduced to New Zealand's Grazing World, is one of the famous Improved Lincoln Sheep named at page 116. That accomplished Grazier, the late Shepherd "Premier" of New Zealand, the Hon. F. A. Weld, will not, I fancy, even on the "Flaxbourne Pastures," produce many specimens like this famous one of the "Branston Flock." But, doubtless, when he sees this ovine Elephant, a creature actually making a "money return" of £23 10s., he will do his best, and may find, in "Long Wool," some solace for a Short Premiership. My Readers will distinctly understand that I want the Lincoln Sheep in New Zealand only for our lower-lying, richest pastures – there, indeed, he would be "the right Sheep in the right place;" but he would be no more capable of getting his living on the wild herbage and Mountain Runs of New Zealand, where the active Merino and Down thrive and fatten, than "Alderman Waddle" would be capable of getting his living by "rag-picking."

SHEEP-WASHING AND WOOL-CLEANSING BY MACHINERY. – The following letter may, I think, be worth the attention of my Wool-Growing Friends in New Zealand: –

"VINE HOUSE,"
Boston Road, Brentford,
May 4th, 1866.

SIR, – I have read your work on New Zealand, and, from your experience, I am induced to ask if you think a Plan for Washing Sheep, and also for Scouring Wool, by Machinery, would meet with encouragement among your New Zealand Wool-Growers. The Machinery will wash with unusual rapidity. It can be worked by common labourers, and the sheep can be washed very much cheaper and better than by hand, burrs and dirt being got rid of, and the fleece being greatly improved in every respect.

The Machine for Scouring Wool is also most effective. It cleanses the wool with one-half the quantity of soap, improves the colour, gives the wool a soft, silky feel, and prepares it in the best possible manner for the manufacturer to spin without any farther preparation.

The Machinery is very portable, and can be made to be removed by a couple of horses to any part of the country. It is intended to patent this Machinery in England, New Zealand, and Australia. The cost will not be great, and if you take sufficient interest in the matter to make it public among your fellow-colonists, I, Sir, shall be extremely obliged to you.

Your Obedient Servant,
WILLIAM GIBBS.
C. HURSTHOUSE, Esq.

[Inserted unpaginated illustration]

THE WORLD, ON MERCATOR'S PROJECTION

38 So little, of Truth, can be said "against" New Zealand, that the little which can be said may be said, here, in a six-line note. It is this – that she is the most meagre, barren "Sporting Country" in the world. Her thousand streams, in look, are the finest trout and salmon streams – but they harbour no fin worth fly. Her millions of acres of primeval forests, her wilds and wastes, might feed and cover armies of Elephant and Eland – they feed and cover no single indigenous quadruped save a wretched Rat. Game, certainly, is being introduced with signal success, and the next generation of "South Britons" may have grand sport – but in these, days, except it be for such "small deer" as duck and pig and parrot and pigeon, the gun, in New Zealand, might well rust in the rack.

39 Here, perhaps, I may be permitted to correct a false impression prevalent among my numerous "emigrating and colonising" correspondents, namely, that I am, also, personally acquainted with Natal. This is not the case, though my late brother-in-law, Dr. Stanger, of the old "Niger Expedition" was some years Surveyor-General of Natal, where, to the grief of troops of friends, he died in the prime of life. Of little Natal, too, it may perhaps here be said, en passant, that in her main features she is only a more lively image of the stagnant Cape Colony, and whatever may be her merits, they are grievously marred, in the eyes of reflective men, by the circumstance of her being both inhabited and surrounded by a numerically overwhelming population of Savage Races. Indeed, while in this, the twenty-fifth year, I think, of her colonisation her "Colonist" population scarcely numbers 16,000, her "Black Skins" number 140,000.

40 In about 50 years, this number of People would have doubled itself – go that, if there had been no Emigration from the Mother Country, the present population of our crowded little British Isles would have been 12,000,000 more than it is, when we might have had our starving thousands, our civil tumults, possibly, even, our "Revolution." Looking at this, and remembering that our American, Australasian, and African Possessions already send the Mother Country gold and raw produce to the extent of £20,000,000 per annum, and take from her British manufactures and British shipments to more than this amount per annum, I venture to think that the Gentlemen of England "who sit at-home in slippered ease," owe a good deal more to Colonies, and to those who have had the "pluck" to emigrate and create Colonies, than they are ever likely to repay.

41 Runholders in Australia and New Zealand are called "Squatters," but, as applied to such men, this is a low, coarse, derogatory term, and one, too, entomologically incorrect. A true, or European "Squatter," is some half-bred gipsy vagabond, or brigand-navvy, who sticks up a hut on another man's land – who recognizes no landlord – who pays no rent – and who often eats mutton which he neither grazed nor bought; whereas, the Australasian "Squatter" is a sort of shepherd-prince, who lawfully rents from the Crown a tract of wild land sometimes half as big as an English county.

42 In the East-coast, Waikato, and Lake districts of Auckland, and along the southern shores of Taranaki, there is some splendid pastoral country – at present, though, in the idle hands of the Natives. Along the rugged west coast of the South Island, too, bits of grass land may here and there be found; but the day any such grazing ground became available it would be taken up by "Squatters," on the spot. Indeed, in reality, persons now emigrating to New Zealand in the hope of being able to hire, first-hand, from the Government, 10,000 or 20,000-acre Runs of good sheep land, could no more gratify their desire in New Zealand than they could in Cumberland or Kent.

43 Many of the more enlightened of the body have already purchased portions of their runs, and have commenced the Grass-sown system, and many more will soon follow their example. Still, speaking with all possible respect of the distinguished Squatting Body, I must say that what I shall take the liberty of calling the pig-headed portion of it regards this commencement of Freeholds, this introduction of base mechanical Ploughs with no great favour – indeed, when Squatters, of this kidney, get together in Divan, their predictions as to the fate of coming Graziers might well, I think, remind my Readers of the prognostics of the old coach-road Stagers as to the fate of Stevenson's Rail.

44 Squatters who may have made as much money as they care about, and off may be, on a trip to Europe for some beauteous Prize Ewe in the shape of a fair young Wife to bloom in the "Britain of the South," – or Squatters wisely turning "Estate-creators" and, thus, buying up 2000 or 3000 acres of the run, and not caring to keep the Lease of the large remaining part, will now and then sell a run – that is, sell the Transfer of the Lease, with the Stock, or a portion of it – but, the sum asked would generally be so large a sum that the small Millionaire, rather than the Emigrant would be the man to buy it.

45 On some few of the remote back Runs, lambs are now and then gobbled up by the wild pig.

46 Except scab. Scab, however, when it decimates a New Zealand flock does so, not because of any peculiar virulence of the Scab in New Zealand, but because of the difficulty of preventing contagion, or of nipping it in the bud, while Flocks are grazed on the present rude Squatting system. When Sheep come to be grazed more as they are at home, Scab, probably, will be no more common in New Zealand than in Norfolk.

47 No doubt, a heavier animal could be produced – but, with wool at 1s. 6d. or 2s. per lb., and mutton, possibly, at 3d., it is wool, not meat which the New Zealand grader will want; and in Germany and elsewhere experience has shown that when the Merino is forced, by feeding, into a much bigger, heavier-framed animal than he is by nature, his fleece instead of becoming heavier and finer becomes inferior and lighter.

48 Mr. Weld, one of our oldest and most successful New Zealand sheep farmers – late Premier, too, of New Zealand, a sort of young "bush" Palmerston – in his excellent little pamphlet on New Zealand Sheep-Farming, does me the honour to agree with me in this opinion as to the fitness of the Lincoln Breed for our richer New Zealand pastures – an opinion long ago expressed by me in the first edition of my little work on New Zealand.

49 Browsing on the luxuriant undergrowth of the forests, and picking up the coarse grassy shrubs found about the edges of the woods, cattle will keep themselves in good case, summer and winter, without a bite of what my Lincolnshire grazing friends would call "grass."

50 Celtic peasant, Irish hodman, Fenian Rebel, much of the rascality of Britain, much of the scum of Europe, will ever be drawn to America – but her civil war, and the knowledge mankind has gained that, under the Stars and Stripes, civil war may periodically happen, will, I think, gradually shut out America as an emigration Held for the higher classes of English and Scotch emigrants – especially, too, as our far finer Australasian Emigration Fields are every year becoming nearer and more attractive.

51 I would not, however, have the Reader imagine for a moment that it is all sunshine and serenity in New Zealand. The climate has its defects, or what, to human ken, seem defects. Like a beautiful shrew, it charms and then exasperates, and then charms again to exasperate afresh. In all seasons of the year you have weeks and weeks of glorious weather worthy of the Garden of Eden, and then the climate seems to go mad for awhile, and to run a sort of meteorological muck; the demons of the storm break loose, and you get southerly burster, batteries of rain, squalls of the first fury, days worthy of the nether regions. You resolve to denounce the climate to the world and die – but then comes, bursting in, a bright renewal of weather so glorious as instantly to allay your rage, to banish all thoughts of revenge, to lap you in roses again. Colonists assert that these "climatic fits" are climatic tonics: that they make a pure air more pure by blowing malaria and miasma innocuous away over the South Pacific; and, certainly, judging by the robust health enjoyed in New Zealand, by the prodigious quantity of children, the rosy robust appearance of these little men and women, and the high condition of all domestic stock, it must be admitted that either because of these climatic fits or in spite of them, the climate is one of super-excellence.

52 Soon after our arrival in the colony, my brother and myself, while looking about for Land, joined an expedition which was the first to drive Sheep and Cattle overland, along the coast, from Wellington to Taranaki, through the country where General Chute has lately so distinguished himself. In this distance of 250 miles, counting river and brook, we had to cross some 80 distinct running waters.

53 In the Taranaki Province, on the richer soil often found at the edges of the bush, I have, by measurement, found this common English plant attaining a height of even 12 and 14 feet; and, in this Province, the surveyors would frequently use fern stalks as wands for what is called "boning" (marking) their lines.

54 Fresh fern land is at first infertile through "sourness." An acre broken up and sown at once with wheat or any crop might not yield fivefold – an adjoining acre fallowed a few months might yield forty-fold. Animal manure is of no use for sourness. The soil is full of raw, undecomposed vegetable matter, and lime would prove the true quickener. Grass land is less affected by "sourness," and Bush land scarcely at all.

55 A large portion of New Zealand's "Digging" community is supplied by the near Australian Colonies. Any famous fresh "find" brings over from Melbourne and Sydney a small, but most "thirsty," army of the "Knights of the Pick;" hence the labour market is less disturbed than might be expected in a country which is exporting her "tons of gold."

56 They were grown by a Devonshire Settler named Lethbridge, then a Sawyer, now a flourishing Grazier and Butcher in Taranaki, on a piece of heavy timber land which had been cleared by the Sawyers, and where he had broken up half an acre for vegetables. I did not see them weighed, but I saw them before they were taken up; the plot of ground seemed one mass of carrots – in size, the roots were more like mangel wurtzel than what they were, and from the known respectability and truthfulness of the man I have no doubt that the weight was what he stated it to be.

57 Some of the finest pastures in the Colony have been obtained in Auckland without any ploughing, while even the "bush" land, alluded to in the following extract from a New Zealand paper, was, probably, land where the seed was merely scattered on the rough, unbroken surface: –

"Nearly all the wooded hills are well adapted for sheep-feeding when cleared and sown down with grass. We have friends who now actually keep from five to six sheep per acre on these mis-termed useless hills. It costs about £3 10s. per acre to cut down the small bush and sow grass seed; and each sheep, in proper condition, will annually yield a fleece 3 lbs. and 4 lbs. in weight, and worth from 1s. 4d to 1s. 5d. per lb.; there is, in addition, the increase of say 75 per cent, every year, with Wellington close at hand as a good market for fat mutton and sheep skins. A labouring man with a very small capital, if of industrious habits, is pretty sure of realizing a handsome and unfailing income. These useless hills may now be had for 10s. an acre. A great deal has been said about land at 2s. 6d. per acre, and if this were the place to do so, we should feel inclined to urge the Government to consider whether it would not be advisable to open for sale all the lands between Porirua Harbour and the west side of the Hutt Valley, in sections varying from a 100 to 1,000 acres, at 2s. 6d. per acre, with the proviso that the purchaser should, within five years from the day of purchase, lay down in grass one-half of the land so purchased. We believe that if this were done some 20,000 acres might, within the next fifteen years be laid down in grass, carrying, at the lowest calculation, 100,000 sheep, and annually yielding, 100,000 lbs. of wool." – Wellington Spectator.

58 Under a large wholesale demand and supply, the expense of seed should not be more than from 18s. to 20s. per acre. The cost of the ditch and bank fence at 20s. a chain is, of course, £80 a mile. In a square mile there are 640 acres, and this, divided into six great paddocks, would take six miles of fencing, costing £80, or 15s. an acre. But, as a portion of the expense of the external fence would sometimes be borne by the adjoining proprietor, we may say that the expense of fencing would probably not be more than from 10s. to 12s. an acre.

59 Sheep and cattle having access to any good bit of farm pasture carry the seed over the surrounding wild land, and by treading and trampling about, manage, in time, to effect a very fair sowing of grass seed. In New Plymouth, mainly by this process, tracts of wild land, road sides, banks and ditches, soon became clothed with a splendid growth of white clover and other grasses; and, very generally, if in laying down 1,000 acres of wild land the proprietor seeded half or two-thirds, the Stock would gradually seed the rest.

60 What with the attractions of Gold Fields, and the arid nature of the climate, the two great Colonies of Victoria and New South Wales will ever be importers of Corn; and, looking at the nearness of New Zealand, compared with the South American wheat countries, and remembering that the corn crop is one-third heavier in New Zealand than in Australia, there can be no doubt that New Zealand will always find a good market in Melbourne and Sydney for any of her surplus vegetable food.

61 The Import of Wool, mainly from our Australian and New Zealand Possessions, in the year 1865, was no less than 212,000,000 pounds – the clip, perhaps, of about 50,000,000 sheep. The Import of Wool has doubled in the last 10 years; and the following "Wool Facts" showing (what I was not at all prepared to expect) that England re-exports a large portion of our Colonial Wool, may interest some of my intrepid Readers undaunted by battalions of figures: –

From the "Times," June 28th, 1866.
Imports of Wool in 1856, 116,000,000 lbs
" 1857, 130,000,000 lbs.
" 1858, 127,000,000 lbs.
" 1859, 133,000,000 lbs.
" 1860, 148,000,000 lbs.
" 1861, 147,000,000 lbs.
" 1862, 172,000,000 lbs.
" 1863, 177,000,000 lbs.
" 1864, 206,000,000 lbs.
" 1865, 212,000,000 lbs.

Exports of Wool in 1860, 81,000,000
" 1861, 54,000,000
" 1862, 48,000,000
" 1863, 64,000,000
" 1864, 56,000,000
" 1865, 82,000,000

62 "Boiling down" was formerly practised to a considerable extent in Australia – the mere fat or tallow of the animal for export to England being worth far more than the meat for colonial consumption. Boiling down establishments were formed in the pastoral districts, and the process became a regular business. The sheep, especially if showing any signs of scab or other contagious disease, were killed and skinned, the carcases thrown into the boiling vat, the fat skimmed off for export tallow, and the meat thrown away.

63

"Hackney'd in business, wearied at that oar
Which thousands, once fast chain'd to, quit no more,
But which, when life at ebb, runs weak and low,
All wish, or seem to wish, they could forego;
The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade,
Pants for the refuge of some rural shade." – Cowper.

64 Lord Bacon, in his Essay on Plantations, in advising the pioneer Settlers in a new country what to do, says – "but moil not too much underground, for the hope of mines is very uncertain, and useth to make the Planters lazy in other things." – Good, my Lord!

65 In some remarks made years ago on the then newly-discovered little gold fields at Aorere, I ventured to observe that, looking at the similar character of the 300 miles of country south of that spot, it was by no means improbable that the precious metal would be found in considerable quantities in various places along the West Coast of the South Island, and that, New Zealand possibly, might some day have her Ballarat and Bendigo; Certain wise men of the East – "gentle dulness ever loves a joke" – were somewhat facetious over this surmise of mine – but let those laugh who win; gold has since been discovered in a dozen localities of that portion of the Colony which I named, and some 70 tons of the poet's "root of evil" have already been exported from New Zealand.

66 There are no Barings or Rothschilds among emigrants; but some possess much greater means than others, and this term is used to signify families, such as Retired Officers, Professional men, Younger Sons, and others who carry out sums of from three to five and six thousand pounds. I have known as much as £10,000 and £12,000 taken to New Zealand, and one of my present correspondents, will, I daresay, carry with him nearly £20,000; but those are quite exceptional sums, and, as times go, families who carry from £3,000 to £4,000 to New Zealand rank there as Capitalists, and those who take from £500 to £1000 as small Capitalists.

67 One Mrs de Smythe, who, in evil hour, went to New Zealand, had the fortune to be a Staff Officer's daughter; and as, though there were many women in the Settlement who, in domestic virtues and easy simplicity of manner, might have worn a coronet, there happened to be no "Staff-officers'" Ladies, she voted society low, and ordered her weaker half to conduct her back.

68 AMERICANS, AND UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE. – I may here, perhaps, be permitted to add in grateful remembrance of the warm welcome everywhere given to me when visiting the States, that we must not judge our Western Kinsmen only by their turgid orators and their New-York-Herald Press. Judging the Americans by the utterances of some of their Prints, Preachers, and Speakers, we might almost be provoked into saying that mankind would lose nothing were their name and nation swept off the map – judging them as they are at-home, weighing their domestic virtues, their wonderful kindness of heart, their dashing originality of character, toned down as it is by their great good sense, we should pronounce them quite the equals of the Imperial Race from which they spring.

Admirable a people as they are, however, it is I think, quite a mistake on the part of our American friends to attribute their national greatness mainly to their Form of Government. Next to the virtues and energies of her sons, the great cause of the marvellous growth and progress of the United States has not been her republican institutions, but her bottomless cornucopia of millions of acres of fertile wild land, and the vast, the incalculable, gifts of capital end labour, money and people, made her for half a century, by Britain. With the same advantages, any people, other than Neapolitans or Hindoos, under any government, other than Mexican or Persian, could not have failed to have made a powerful nation of a magnificent territory like that of the States; and monarchists might assert that the real greatness of America no more proceeds from universal suffrage and the ballot-box than the motion of our carriage proceeds from the pretentious fly revolving on the spoke of the wheel.

69 "THE BRITISH LION IN NEW ZEALAND." – In the present century however, the honour and renown of Britain and her Flag, must not again be tarnished by such a "procedure and policy" as, (unheedingly) she has permitted her Downing Street Colonial Office, egged on by certain penny wise M.P.s, to pursue in New Zealand. That the "management" of the Native Race in New Zealand has ever been a function of Government especially retained by the Colonial Office in its own hands to the exclusion of the Colonists and that the Native War in New Zealand has been caused by such management, been the bitter fruit of that crass policy of "petting and pampering" the Natives pursued for quarter of a century by Downing Street and Exeter Hall, are facts patent to all. Yet, when and while British Regiments were being defied, if not defeated, by Bands of Rebel Savages – when and while it was utterly uncertain whether the little community of the North Island of New Zealand would be able, by themselves, to make head against that fanatical, barbarous, bush-protected Foe which had baffled the regular troops, the Colonial office of Great Britain, administered, too, by a man of English birth, actually recalled its "paralysed" Regiments from the Field on the paltry plea that the handful of Colonists, who had already raised a small army of their own to fight a battle brought on them by the laches of others, could not pay for the red coats, too – Most assuredly (but unbeknown to his real Keepers the People of the British Isles) the British Lion has, in New Zealand, sneaked out of a quarrel which his Colonial Office and his Exeter Hall brought about and provoked; and no amount of virtuous economy and red tape, talked by Mr. Cardwell and the Times, can conceal the disgraceful fact.

70 NOTE. – Mainly, through falling in with one or two little Publications of mine on New Zealand, many excellent Families, actually amounting, altogether, to about 1,000 Persons – Families of the "Capitalist" and "Small Capitalist" orders of Emigrants – contemplating Emigration to some Colony or other, have thought well to place themselves in communication with me. Many of these have been encouraged by me to improve their fortunes in New Zealand; while others who have seemed to me unfit for a "Colonial Career" have, perhaps, been induced to think better of staying at-home. Indeed, I venture to think that, for a plain quiet sort of person, not at all ambitious of fussing and buzzing about as any sort of "New Zealand Celebrity," I, during my sojourn in this Country, have practically done more to send fertilizing "Capital and Labour" to New Zealand than any one, unaided, private Individual who has ever interested himself in the young fortunes of our infant "Britain of the South."

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