ANOTHER DESCRIPTION OF GISBORNE.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 499, 28 August 1890, Page 2

ANOTHER DESCRIPTION OF GISBORNE.

CI?EEBFUL GIBBOUNH. te A Tramp,” in the N. Z. Herald, has the following in his Ramblings The distressing continuity of wet weather has had a dampening effect upon Poverty Bav. The first breath of spring is decidedly fusty in fragrance, and sundry of the inhabitants of the once sparkling capital of the Bay have become blue mouldjr for want of a little snuaMne. But, however wet without, the relic of "the good old time is still dry within. Such another inclement season is not within the memory of the earliest pilgrim. Yet is the tradesman hopeful, and he looks forward to a bright and booming summer to compensate him for the dulness of business during the winter. Gisborne is not a “ Cave of Despair.” Christmas must come, and with it hundreds of festive bush-whackers, who are now in the back blocks, hewing fortunes for the publican and the storekeeper. With its falling bush, and the rise of the frozen meat industry, Gisborne has indeed reasonable cause to be sanguine as to her future prosperity. MILLENNIUM* DAYS. The enterprise of the Messrs Nelson Brothers in establishing freezing works in Gisborne has given a signal impetus to the prosperity of the Bay. Land hitherto considered too remote, with but doubtful prospects of returning interest on the capital expended on its cultivation, is now being eagerly sought after and occupied. They say that the area of bush at present under the axe is greater than at any other period in the history of the Bay. One great blessing for Gisborne is that it is being taken up in comparatively small blocks. Nothing advances the progress and prosperity of a town so much as a thriving population of small settlers. The frozen meat industry seems destined to create this much-desired population for New Zealand, and give the coup dd jyntec to the squatting monopolist. The squatter has always met the attacks upon his monopoly and justified his occupation by the assertion that sheep-farming on a small scale, unless close to a market, would not pay. The blast of Haslam’s cold air has scattered his arguments and affirmations into space, and left him without a leg to stand on. The market is at the door, and is illimitable. This being so small sheep farms, according to the squatter’s own showin, will now pay; and if they pay the individual, the patent sequence is that they must pav the State much better than large ones. Cultivated in small areas, land will produce more because the labor and capital expended on it would be more than is whin

the means of the richest runholder. The late Sir Donald acquired an enormous tract of rich land; his heirs, reckoned among the wealthiest of squatterdom, expend large sums yearly in tillage, but it is questionable even with all their capital employed that they could succed in working the soil up to its full carrying capacity, whereas were it cut up into small areas instead of one magnificent mansion squatted in solitary state monopolising for its maintenance a demesne’ whose boundary fences are not within the limit of the horizon, we should immediately see within the circle of that same horizon hundreds of “ smiling homesteads,” thousands of happy creatures, made after God’s own image, enjoying the heritage he gave them, and hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of labor poured into the fruitful earth, increasing its productive powers fourfold One of our excuses for seizing the land of tho nativesis that in their hands it is not sufficiently productive. Why draw the line at the Maoris ? Freezing works have brought millennium days to the sbeepfarmers, both great and small, but let. not the great bo too jubilant. The days of the land monopolist are numbered. The day of the bursting up of big estates is near; the handwriting is upon the wall; the doom of the sheep king is pronounced, and with him the dissolution of shearers* unions—may they both rest in peace. Proceed, oh Nelson Brothers, with your good work ; establish more freezing stations, and speed the dav that will see the last of the squatters stiff and stark in a calico bag—frozen out. gisbornk’s millstone.

What takes the buoyancy out of the Gishornite and brings gloom to his brow, and sadness in his eye?, and causes his lip to droop, is the few chains of concrete wall he tied round his neck and dropped into the sea in the hope of forming a harbor. Notwithstanding the tons of money spent on ir, the formation of the harbor seems as far off as ever. So far, the work of man and ignorance of the laws of nature hrve eon* tributed to lessen the little waterway possessed by Gisborne before it slung the millstone. But harbor or no harbor, the interest on the borrowed money has to be paid, and this is the gall in the cup of prosperity in front of Gisborne, and causes its citizens to feel sad. Still there is a sparkle of hope for the harbor. The marine engineer of the colony, Mr C. Y. O’Connor, has been sent hither to make a report on the work, and the sanguine Gisbornites guess from hia looks that their case is not altogether hopelesg.