A Cheerful Report.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 290, 25 April 1889, Page 3

A Cheerful Report.

Mr Matson, the Canterbury man who achieved colonial distinction for himself by his declaration that ** Canterbury must have the Midland railway or bust, ” has issued a oommeroial report which is quite a new feature in this line of business. He now takes up his subject with an enthusiasm which does credit to his cause. Commenting upon the disposition to hang on to Old sheep, he says “ It is always better to recognise the fact that young and fruitful animals are more profitable and pay better, rewarding energy and industry with a profit, while aged stock and worn-out animals give no commensurate return for the labor and trouble expended upon .them. Time, the solvent of all things, will, in the near future, educate our farmers ; for we are great believers in what is termed • educated democracy,’ that is, the pure scientific intelligence of profit and loss as experienced by" our bucolic fraternity. Some men are enthusiastic, some sleep and slumber in obliquity; the vivid mind of expansion, progress, and utilitoils the way to success. An unhappy creature sitting upon the milestone of * Mugwumpishy nets 'end distress, ever oarping at hie lot in life, is a lorry creature to meet, W-e can only UkM him to • culled merino sheep which

has had a hard fate, too much crowded, unevenly fed—an animal in fact, that neither produces wool or meat, and pays no interest, vide some of the managements of the stations in New Zealand. It is an old but faithful truism, that an animal well fed, nurtured and looked after means profit, whilst the neglected and overstocked means ruin and disaster.” Next the farmers are addressed as to the price of grain in the following terms: —“ The * vim 'of a successful farmer is centralised, promoted, and occasioned by the result in net cash profit of his yearly returns for his produce. We have no desire to promote an unwholesome anticipation of values, but we distinctly and honestly assert that the producer of corn and cereals of all kinds has a right to protect hie own interest. We have no desire to inflate the minds of the producers, but if the Canterbury farmer has ever had an avenue of success open to him, it is in this year of grace, 1889. It is needless to say that the pig-headed nature of mankind often runs its snout into a tussock, and we are the last people to advise men to hold when they should sell. The providential season has been so beneficent and kind that the bulk of production per acre should enable the mind of the producer to take a fair price when he can it.” Next Mr Matson enters on a crusade against the class of horses for lighter work generally bred in New Zealand. Of the 130 horses offered by him at his last sale he regretfully remarks that “if he had his way, the majority would have walked the planks of expulsion, and have been seen no more,” and that “it is simply ridiculous that the common nags of the street traffic should be allowed to infest our cities.” Then Mr Matson, with complacent cheerfulness, refers to the recovery in land values. ”It would,” he says, “ perhaps be fulsome for us to say that no country under the good guidance of the Queen’s realm possesses the virtues of production more, or in a greater degree, than the colony of New Zealand, but in deference to others who, in ignorance forsooth, make remarks in derogation of our country, we again assert that while rubbing shoulders daily with men of all sorts and conditions of life, and looking the fact sternly in the face, and placing acre against acre with the jresent known universe, that we have, accordng to proved powers of production, to sing Hail Zealandia,” Even the stranger at our gates is not overlooked, being thus addressed i—•• To the English novice, or to one who is commissioned to visit our colony, and study the public feeling of an ‘ educated demooracy,'doubtless the sales of stock, the exchange of coin, and the familiarity of the genus homo,. will be a lesson hitherto not experienced, The wool kings of the Amuri, the minersand the fossickers of the West Coast, the sheep farmers and the corn producers of South Canterbury, this year unite in shaking hands in cordial unanimity in consequence of the prices realised for produce generally and the favorable prospects before them.”