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New Zealand,
as a Field of Emigration.

Extending from north to south for upwards of eight hundred miles, and varying in breadth from fifteen to one hundred and fifty miles, the Islands of New Zealand comprise an area somewhat greater than that of the United Kingdom; and, being more generally indented with estuaries and deep bays, they have a sea board exceeding considerably that of the Island of Great Britain. Mountainous in their character, they are irrigated in every direction by fresh water rivers and streams: they are still partially covered with forests of valuable timber; and the open country, with its fern-clad hills and grassy plains, even in its natural state, affords good pasturage for sheep and cattle. From various animals, and venomous reptiles of every kind, the country is entirely free; its climate is famed for its mildness and salubrity; and the soil is suited to the growth of every description of English farm produce. In both the principal islands gold has already been discovered; and though the mineral resources of the country have as yet been but very imperfectly developed, coal, copper ore, manganese, iron, sand, and sulphur, have been found in various localities. Owing to the irregular shape of the islands, their snow-clad mountains, their forest ranges and open plains, the climate of New Zealand is considerably modified by local influences; but, allowing for disturbing page 14causes, the temperature becomes gradually colder from the North Cape to Stuart's Island, in the South; and the difference between the climate of Auckland and Otago is as great as between that of the Isle of Wight and Aberdeen.

The great demand for every description of farm produce in the Australian colonies, has had the effect of demonstrating the agricultural capabilities of the country, and of stimulating the enterprise of the people: and as a field for the exertions of the industrious poor, New Zealand is probably without a rival. For those, however, who have already failed at home—for decayed tradesmen, for clerks and shopmen, for candidates for Government employment, for young men who have neither capital nor skill, and who are too proud or too weak to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow—New Zealand cannot be recommended as a field of emigration. But for the stout agricultural labourer, for the industrious artizan, the domestic servant, the small hardworking farmer, with a thrifty wife and stalwart sons and daughters; for every class of our countrymen who are able and willing to earn their daily bread by means of their daily labour, the country affords a congenial field on which an early independence may with certainty be earned.^*