CHAPTER XIV. CONCLUSION.
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CHAPTER XIV.
CONCLUSION.
IN the foregoing pages it has been endeavoured to set before the reader a brief and accurate view of the Province of Otago--its progress, and present condition. Plain, unvarnished facts only have been adduced. Argument has been felt to be unnecessary.
And now, having told what Otago has to offer, it may be as well to say a few words as to what Otago has not.
In the first place, then, she has neither paupers nor poor-houses. Beggary is unknown; for there is work, and consequently food, for all. It is a significant fact that advertisements from persons requiring employment are very rarely seen in the local newspapers. There are no savages--cannibalistic, or otherwise--in the land. For the Maories of the Middle Island must not be confounded with the warlike and irascible tribes of the North, of whose barbarities so much has been related. The two islands are widely separated by Cook's Straits, and Otago is as remote from the scene of the native wars as Spain is distant from Britain. The few Maories left in the Middle Island are so completely civilized as to have lost, in a great degree, the traces of their savage origin. Many of them keep their banking accounts, and are land-owners and proprietors of many horses and cattle.
Neither are there any wild beasts in Otago, nor venomous snakes, nor any reptiles at all, save a small lizard, about five inches in length. There is not so much as a toad or a frog even; for, like Ireland in this respect, New Zealand is favoured by the absence of such vermin.
Otago is not subject to the furnace-blast of the hot winds so prevalent in the Australian colonies, nor liable to devastating droughts. There are no ants to sting, nor any gnats to worry the cattle. Mosquitoes are mythical; and sand-flies, retreating from the presence of man, are a nuisance only in little-frequented regions,
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in marshy lands or dense bush, and on the West Coast. The minor miseries of colonial life are therefore few in number.
To the industrious and energetic, Otago offers manifold advantages; but it is not the place--nor is any colony--for the slothful, the dissipated, or the extravagant. The first will be able to win their way to independence; the latter will be sure to fall lower. The one class may, therefore, be honestly advised to come hither; the other is most earnestly recommended to remain at home. The one will meet with advice, assistance, and comfort; the other will fail to secure either sympathy or aid. Work is hallowed, whether it be of the head or of the hand; and the worker is respected by every colonist, but the drone is deservedly shunned and despised.
Otago is also well suited for small capitalists, who find themselves ever placed at a disadvantage in the battle of life when matched against wealthier competitors, as in Britain. Here there is not the same great disproportion of means between the various grades of the mercantile community. The field of commerce is free to all comers, and its scope is continually extending with the growth of the Colony.
Farmers, who at home would continue to be only tenants, without other hope or prospect, may become owners of the land in Otago, and so experience that thrill of pleasurable pride wherewith a man plants firmly his feet on the soil which is his own.
There are many in Britain who, having no profession nor any knowledge of business pursuits, live a life of genteel misery on narrow incomes. To these, if they can brace up their energies to move elsewhere, Otago presents many inducements. Their few thousands, which yield so little at home, could be here safely invested, as before stated, at from ten to twelve per cent interest. And they would have the additional satisfaction of being able to send forth their children with fair prospects of their future welldoing in some of the many new channels ever opening in the colonies to youthful energy and perseverance.
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It is always a sore wrench to sever from one's family and friends, and venture out into the wide world alone. But the pang is lessened by the knowledge that in the new country whither the wanderer is proceeding he will find a climate and a people so like those he will have left behind that the change will be robbed of more than half its bitterness. And when Hope beckons onward, pointing the way to the acquisition of plenty, comfort, and content in the future, 'tis well to "set a stout heart to a steep brae," and --trusting in God's providence--go forth to dwell in and to possess the Promised Land. 1
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