in a splendid revenue from London; wheat was rising; New Zealand butter bounded to the top of the English market, and London experts gave it a valuable advertisement by declaring that it was superior to the Danish and the Norman article.
Nature was kind to the Liberal Government, whose prospects seemed to get brighter each day. With Atkinson’s protective tariff, rising prices, and better spirits, there was a stir in commerce and industry. The Bank of New Zealand wrote off a sum representing the depreciation in the value of its landed property. Instead of being kept up to an artificial price, at which nobody could buy, the property was brought-down to a legitimate figure, at which it could be bought and put into use. The cry of the unemployed was heard less frequently, and the colony began to lose its melancholy air.
On summing up the position, the public congratulated itself on the fact that although it might have used the word “repudiation” without thinking a few years previously, and although the depression had hung around it like a horrid cloud, good progress was being made and the future was encouraging.
