Money is not to be had for less, go
where you will for it; and if obtained from a merchant, his 2.5 per
cent.
Commission, repeated at intervals of six months, makes a nominal
10 per cent. into 15. I mention this to show you that, if it pays
people to give this exorbitant rate of interest (and the current rate
MUST be one that will pay the borrower), the means of increasing capital
in this settlement are great. For young men, however, sons of gentlemen
and gentlemen themselves, sheep or cattle are the most obvious and best
investment. They can buy and put out upon terms, as I have already
described. They can also buy land, and let it with a purchasing clause,
by which they can make first-rate interest. Thus, twenty acres cost 40
pounds; this they can let for five years, at 5s. an acre, the lessee
being allowed to purchase the land at 5 pounds an acre in five years'
time, which, the chances are, he will be both able and willing to do.
Beyond sheep, cattle, and land, there are few if any investments here
for gentlemen who come out with little practical experience in any
business or profession, but others would turn up with time.
What I have written above refers to good men. There are many such who
find the conventionalities of English life distasteful to them, who want
to breathe a freer atmosphere, and yet have no unsteadiness of character
or purpose to prevent them from doing well - men whose health and
strength and good sense are more fully developed than delicately
organised - who find head-work irksome and distressing, but who would be
ready to do a good hard day's work at some physically laborious
employment. If they are in earnest, they are certain to do well; if
not, they had better be idle at home than here. Idle men in this
country are pretty sure to take to drinking. Whether men are rich or
poor, there seems to be far greater tendency towards drink here than at
home; and sheep farmers, as soon as they get things pretty straight and
can afford to leave off working themselves, are apt to turn drunkards,
unless they have a taste for intellectual employments. They find time
hang heavy on their hands, and, unknown almost to themselves, fall into
the practice of drinking, till it becomes a habit. I am no teetotaller,
and do not want to moralise unnecessarily; still it is impossible, after
a few months' residence in the settlement, not to be struck with the
facts I have written above.
I should be loth to advise any gentleman to come out here unless he have
either money and an average share of good sense, or else a large amount
of proper self-respect and strength of purpose. If a young man goes out
to friends, on an arrangement definitely settled before he leaves
England, he is at any rate certain of employment and of a home upon his
landing here; but if he lands friendless, or simply the bearer of a few
letters of introduction, obtained from second or third hand - because his
cousin knew somebody who had a friend who had married a lady whose
nephew was somewhere in New Zealand - he has no very enviable look-out
upon his arrival.
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