Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/315

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
Our New Zealand Cousins.
299

here for every willing, capable, self-respecting man, under circumstances of such material comfort, such increased remuneration, such political freedom, such generous fare and charm of climate, with all the accessories and surroundings of community of speech, race, religion, and home institutions, as are nowhere else procurable in any dependency of the Empire. A little "roughing it" there is certain to be at first. Things will be a little strange to begin with. The streets of colonial cities are not paved with gold, and indeed the towns and cities are in any case not the best fields for the labourer in the colonies, but if a man is willing, adaptable, handy, cheerful, sober, and determined to get on, depend upon it he cannot fail of a success, which is all but impossible of achievement in the crowded and narrow sphere of the labourer's life at home.

To the seeker after health, these colonies offer the fountains of renewed youth. At all times of the year by judiciously changing the locality, you can live in perpetual summer, with an air as balmy and bracing, and perfectly enjoyable, as can fall to the lot of mortals here below.

To the lover of the picturesque, and the seeker after the pure delights that a communion with nature ever yields, I think my pages of description surely afford ample promise that a visit cannot possibly be fraught with disappointment.

The clouds of commercial depression are lifting. The native difficulty seems to be fairly and for ever settled. Politics, let us hope, are becoming purified. The long succession of deficits has at