The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Thursday, September 24, 1891. A COMING RIVAL.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume V, Issue 663, 24 September 1891, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Thursday, September 24, 1891. A COMING RIVAL.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, Thy God’s, and truth’s.;

The news from Perth that a gold rush i has set in to Western Australia may be ‘ cheering news to the great numbers , who have already settled in that colony, i but little New Zealand cannot view the , information without some gloominess of spirit. Politicians have failed to ( stem the drift from our shores, and there is no use trying to screen the fact that month by month the population returns are against the colony. Each return shows that a great proportion of the departures is for the colony of New South Wales, but the probability is that Sydney is only made use of as a port from which many take their departure to Western Australia, which is now characterised by a wonderful spirit of progressiveness in its development. The “ scientific ” machinery of the land boom swindler is being utilised with all the force and craftiness that Victorian experience has added to the natural aptitude in this line that existed when Martin Chuzzlewit was written. But there is genuine evidence sufficient to pr.ove that Western Australia will soon take high rank among the Australasian colonies. The granting of responsible Government seems to have had a magical effect, and now speculators from all quarters are aiding to develop the colony while they seek to make fortunes for themselves. Many erroneous impressions as to climate and quality of soil are being cleared away, and proof given that there is a great future before the colony. Land laws of a liberal nature have been brought into force, and the opening of new local markets is giving an impetus to the cultivation of the soil, while the railways are making the great forests of present utility, and enabling the back country to be made available for occupation. But great hopes have been centred on the mineral wealth of the colony. There is a deeper dye of rascality about the mining scrip sharper than there is about the notorious land boomer, but in the one respect, as in the other, there is enough genuine information at hand to prove that there is something much better than 99 per cent, swindle and 1 per cent, gold about Western Australia. For some time new finds of a more or less valuable nature have been recorded, Gold rushes are ever to be regarded with an eye of suspicion, but if the new rush now reported from Perth is based on some solid ground, it is bound to attract a great many men from New Zealand. There are numerous New Zealanders already trying their fortunes in Western Australia, and if they regard the new finds as worthy of the rush they will soon communicate with old golddiggers in this colony, which is more likely than any other to be affected by a gold-fever in Western Australia. The climate about Perth is said to be very much like the New Zealand climate.