The Press.
London, England, 1857-05-16 00:00:00

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486

a new country without friends, home, or
resources, and plunged thent into a contest
with difficulties and dangers to which their
hardest struggles in Europe were an agree-
able stimulant. The real history of a middle-
class colonist's life would be instructive. We
should then learn for the first time what
" colonial experience " really means.
In this sketch of New Zealand we are bound
to say that so far as the physical description
of the country Mr. Hursthouse has, ou the
whole, acted with greater impartiality than we
expected. Witness his opinion upon the
climate :

Feminine superlatives, such as " nicest," " fittest,"
"loveliest," "sweetest," have been so lavished on it as to
have obscured its true character, and its real unquestion•
able merits. In the sense in which we use such terms as
fine serene climate, there are many climates equal to that
of New Zealand. Nay, if we limit the comparison to any
one special month or season, we may perhaps find climates
which, partially, are even finer. I have never experienced
any month in New Zealand equal in settled splendour,
and sunny serenity, to the Indian summer of America. I
should fancy there is no entire season in New Zealand
equal to the luxurious softness and young bri'liancy of an
Italian spring; and perhaps no whole month equal to a
fine old English June. There is too much cloudy windy
weather in New Zealand to entitle us to say that it has a
sunny, serene climate ; and the southern coasts are subject
to storms of cold rain and furious wind (" Southerly
liursters "), which are probably equal in their way to any
in the world.
Nevertheless, the climate of New Zealand is substan•
tially a good climate ; and has been not so much over
praised as badly praised. More frost, less wind and rain,
would make it perfection ; but, as it is, all this may truly
be said of it :—That it is a climate favourable alike to the
preservation of robust health and to the improvement of
weak health ; a climate most congenial to all pastoral and
agricultural pursuits; one in which every English domestic
animal thrives and fattens; and in which every English
grain, grass, fruit and flower attains full development and
perfection.
Again, in drawing a comparison between the
climates of England and New Zealand, he
writes :

Two considerations must be borne in mind:—the first,
that all which is bad and disagreeable in the one is felt;
whereas, owing to the appliances and contrivances of high
civilisation, half which is bad and disagreeable in the other
is not felt: the second, that we are speaking of the New
Zealand climate in its "rude-primeval state," not in its
" art improved " state. No art can make a bad climate
good ; but art can make any climate better. The cultiva-
tion of a new country materially improves its climate.
I).inip and dripping forests, exhaling pestilent vapours
from rank and rotten vegetation, fall before the axe ; and
light and air get in and sunshine, ripening goodly plants.
Fea and marsh and swamp, the bittern's dank domains,
fertile only in miasma, are drained ; and the plough con•
verts them into wholesome plains of fruit and grass and
grain.

From this we may reasonably gather that
" damp and dripping forests, exhaling pesti-
" lential vapours," &c., do more or less exist in
the islands, and that though the climate be
now comparatively good, it will require settle-
ment and cultivation before it becomes posi.
tively healthy. There is no doubt that New
Zealand is as wet as Australia is dry. New
Zealand abounds in rivers, brooks, lakes, and
springs ; rain falls incessantly ; and one point
argued so strongly in its favour, viz., the beauty
of the landscape from the perpetual verdure, is
proof palpable of heavy rains and heavier dews
throughout the year. Possessed of a light.
porous soil, and without fens, this perpetual
moisture is not, on the whole, so in-
jurious in New Zealand as it would be
over the stiff clays of some of our
counties. Then for seasons, the spring and
summer of New Zealand are very like the
disagreeable spring and the tolerable summer
of England ; while for a type of its winter,
we may select that agreeable month—a wet
and windy March.
But, apart from its doubtful climate, New
Zealand certainly offers peculiar advantages to
the emigrant. It has a light but prolific soil,
and though without the vast grazing plains of
Australia, ityet possesses that variety of hill and
valley, high tableland, and noble plain, more
or less wooded and well watered, so essential
to a country which will, in all probability, for
years to come, depend for its future prosperity,
not so much upon its mineral wealth as on
the full eevelopment of its pastoral and agri-
cultural resources. Yet, in the face of these
favourable circumstances, the Australian dig.
gings prove ruinous rivals to the mere advan-
tages of soil which New Zealand at present
alone can offer to the emigrant. The innate
love of speculation carries a man, despite his

THE PRESS.

butter sense, to Bendigo or Ballarat,to dis-
cover, when he has lost his last sixpence, that
gold•digging is but an indifferent investment,
and that he might have done infinitely better
with his money if he had bought a few hun-
dred acres of land in New Zealand, and settled
down to a less arduous and more profitable
occupation. Such is the history of ninety per
cent. of the gold-diggers. But this ten dency
to the diggings in the face of all experience
and fact, proving the average of gold-finding
to be under• Bs. a day, is most injurious to our
other colonies, for it induces want of popu-
lation, and consequent want of capital and
labour, and it is this that so hopelessly " tails
off" Ne w Zealand in the race of nations rapidly
developing itself in the South Pacific.
It is dangerous, perhaps, to hazard a predic-
tion us to the future of New Zealand. There
may be more truth in Mr. Macaulay's New
Zealander than is dreamt of in our philosophy ;
but one thing appears probable, that unless
some great discovery of gold, copper, or coal
does take place, these islands, formed by
nature for the cradle and the home of a great
naval power and commercial nation, will
either be absorbed into the rising empires
upon each side, or, if left independent, never
emerge from their present political insignifi-
cance. The want of population, if it con-
tinue, may ultimately ruin the colony.
Mr. Hursthouse feels this acutely, and he
writes:—

Without a British emigrant population, New Zealand
can rise to be no more than Tahiti, the Sandwich Islands,
the liejees, or any other semi•sarage island group of the
South Pacific.

With her parish handful of 50,000 inhabitants she may
be likened to the puny infant stumbling over straws—give
her a population of five hundred thousand, and then the
value of every present colonist's acro would be increased
fiftyfold, and her step would be Diana's—give her a popu-
lation of five millions, and she might display an annual
export of twenty millions sterling, sweep the Pacific, take
toll of Australia's gold beetles, harry Chins, alarm Russia,
defy the Times, and demand Prince Alfred Ernest Albert
fur King.

Agair, he argues strongly for the local land
and emigration agents, in their statements
and arrangements, keeping in view the object
" to tempt to the colony British families ;" for
the system which accomplished that object,
he tells us, would " put more pounds in the
" pockets of the 50,000 colonists of New
" Zealand than any half a dozen systems
" which did not aim to accomplish it would
" put pence." Of course it would, and here
lies the secret of nearly every book written by
a colonist upon the colonies. Pelf, not philan-
thropy, is the motive of the writer. " Tempt," in
these days of Camerons and Pauli, is an
awkward word when applied to professions for
the public, and after so frank a confession
we are apt to accept a writer's praise of a colony
only with doubt, and take his statements with
hesitation.

But os we have spoken of the ad-
vantages of New Zealand, we may ob-
serve that she has others besides a
good soil, plenty of water, and u tolerable
climate. Her wild animals are confined to
the pig and cat, and she boasts of not one
single destructive creature or venomous
reptile. It is curious to remark, in accordance
with that inevitable law of natural reaction,
how with the absence of all Jerre nature is
coupled an entire want of game. Islands so
abounding in water and undercover and mag-
nificent feeding grounds, to claim not even a
kangaroo is a zoological mistake. The
country should be well stocked with game.
Mr. Hursthouse advocates the richer emi-
grants, so soon as they can be induced to
diverge from Victoria to New Zealand, taking
out with them a few pheasants and partridges,
red deer and rabbits, and a slate cistern or two
full of salmon. This is not good advice; an
emigrant should hamper himself with nothing
half so troublesome nor expensive. Let him
take as little baggage as he can conveniently
carry, all of the best quality, and bo content
with the remainder of his capital, not in red
deer or salmon, but in cash. The old-estab-
lished colonist, returning to his sheep-farm,
is the only man who can venture upon so dan-
gerous an experiment as taking out live stock.
With game, fruit and flowers are also want-
ing to New Zealand : she possesses neither
oue nor the other. But then British Flora and

SATURDAY,

Pomona are quickly naturalised, and thrive
well in all the settled districts.

Mr. Hursthouse enters into a detailed ex•
amination of the position and prospects
of the different settlements on the coasts of
New Zealand, but we do not gather from his
book any preference for Canterbury over
Nelson nor for Auckland over ‘Vellington. Ile
has illustrated his work with many beautiful
coloured engravings of charming little boxes
in the bush—we all know how pretty they look
upon paper—but he fails to give us any hard
facts upon the actual progress of the colony.
However, he concludes his work with
some excellent practical advice to emi-
grants upon the important question,
who should and who should not have the
mother country. Upon every point connected
with the voyage he also eaters at some length,
and his observations are generally those of a.
seasoned traveller. Upon the whole, his book
is the most comprehensive we have seen upon.
the subject. It is quite a handbook to New
Zealand life, and, though written too much
with a view " to tempt," may be accepted as a
tolerably fair description of the advantages
and resources of New Zealand.

In his preliminary historical sketch, Mr.
Hursthouse enters at some length and some-
what disparagingly upon the colonial policy
of the Earl of Derby in P•t4l-2 (then Lord
Stanley), and upon the noble lord's
treatment of the New Zealand Company.
Mr. Hursthouse does not put the twilit
fairly. The real question at issue was the
spoliation of the natives for the benefit of the
Company, who by unfair and unequal contracts
tvith the native chiefs endeavoured to secure
enormous territorial possessions to themselves.
It was this rapacity Lord Derby was deter-
mined to control ; and the noble earl laid
down the broad, intelligible principle that,
this country having recognised the indepen-
dence of New Zealand, our settlers should ac-
quire their possessions only by legitimate ces-
sion, and neither by an inequitable construction
of our engagements nor by a falser system of
barter, more properly plunder. The wisdom
of that policy which convinced the natives of
the faith of our country, and of the justice or
its laws, is shown to this day in the regard
and respect of the native New Zealander, and
in our tranquil possession of legitimately-
acquired lands.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.-3Lty 11.
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Nightshade. A Novel. By W. Johnson, M.A. R. Bentley.
Lives it, the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal
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Egypt and the Great Suez Canal. By J. Barthelemy Saint
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Edinburgh Dissected. Groombridge and Suns.
The Biographical History of Philosophy. By George
Henry Lewes. J. W. Parker and Son.
The Poetical Works of John Edward Beade. New Edition.
Four vols. Longman and Co.
The Statue Shrine A Greek Legend. Hall and Virtue.
Under the Lime Trees. By Caroline Ricketts. L. Booih.
Barchester Towers. By Anthony Trollope. Three vole.

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Phanstasmata ; or, Illusions and Fanaticism. Two vols.

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Below the Surface. A Story of English Country Li.e.
Three vole. Smith and Elder.
The Memoirs of the Duke of Saint Simon. By Hide St.
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