54 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
[July 1, 1899. 
is as a relaxation, nob as a means of cuUuie. 
The results of tliis aie beginning to ajjperti-. 
The range of conversation among middle 
class young men, young nieii in Imsiness 
in the colonies, is much narrower liian tliat of tiie 
same class at home, for the simple rea-ion that 
Llie mind runs in a narrower groove. Allusions 
in sermtms and lectures and wdciresses to cnai-ac- 
tsrs and situations in Standard Litei'atu'-e, to 
scientiHc or historical points, are seized by only 
the very few ; a really good speech would he 
surer of being appreciated in Colombo or Kandy 
even, tlian here in British Auckland. One of the 
gravest perils threatening the Australasian colo- 
nies is this intellectual narrowing and dwarfing 
that is going on. While in Biitain aiid many of 
the colonies there is intellectual elevation ob- 
.servable generation after generation, in these Aus- 
tralasian colonies alone there is deterioration ; the 
old settler with just his memories of ihe old liome 
life, and the remaining vestiges of his interest in 
the wider life he had at home, is generally in- 
telleciually (though often not educar.ionally ) the 
supeiior or iiis sons born in the colonies, iiis in- 
tellectual horizon being a wider one. How this 
will work out in another generation or two who 
can tell? N<jbody who wants to see these colonies 
well to the fire in the competitions of the future 
(competitions in which intellect will ever cive 
greater and greater advant.age) can conteiupiate 
this feature of colonial life exactly with equani- 
mity. Better subsidise Cliinese and Indian coolies 
to come into the colonies and so secure for the 
average British there a little leisure for mental 
culture even though the Vi'orking man's present 
prepo'^terous wage is reduced a fraction or two, 
than by the present system pursued to train — for 
future competition with the home country and 
America and with other wiser colonies — ,a genera- 
tion of -well-fed .animals witli muscles well deve- 
loped by labour, with power to read, write and 
count as the result of tlie leally splendid educa- 
tional system, but with a mind that has no in- 
terests beyond the work by which bread is earned, 
" Man shall not live by bread alone," cannot, with- 
out soon sinking below the ordained level of man. 
If man could live by 
BREAD ALONE, 
using the. word in its wider (Scripture) sense, 
this would be a Paradise, for butcher's meat 
is very cheap. Beef is about four pence 
a pound and mutton twopence. This is as 
near the lowest as it can well be, while still 
leaving to the public the flattering consciousness 
that they are ))aying for it. There are no poor 
people as far as I can see ; I have never seen a 
hungry-looking face since I landed here ; but I 
have seen sleeli dogs passing contemptuously by 
bits ot meat thrown to them from butchers' stalks, 
which would have been aeceijted by any of tens 
of thousands of human poor in England with loud 
blessings on the head of the donor. 
It is a curious experiment commercially that 
is being tried here, namely, to develop a new 
country 
WITHObT CAPITALISTS. 
I am not in a position to prophesy about the 
future, but at piesent everything seems to be 
langui hing for a little more money than the 
authorities can spend on it. Auckland is a large 
and commercially nourishing city, but its build- 
ings are poor ; its streets, though wide are badly 
kept, some of the leading thoroughfares having 
strips of grass in huge tufts disfiguring them at 
intervals and being yellow with what looks like 
chaff, bub which is the horse manure of months 
poutided by the horses' feet and scattered by the 
winds; the fooli>aths are in many j)laces-half 
cjvered with asphalt and half left bare ; at niglit 
you have to stumlile about in the streets for the 
lamps are poor and far apart, and so unusual is 
anything more than the single-burner street lamp, 
that the erection of a triple-burner lamp in a 
suburb has led the " three lamps " at Pon.sonby 
to be known as a laod mark all over the city. 
Auckland might have been a splendid city had 
there been finances to develope iton the lines on 
which ic was orii'ioally laid out, but at present 
it wears the appearanpe of a sjjlendid estate 
which has der-cended to an imjiecunious lorrl ; and 
I am told (I know nothing by experience beyond 
Aucklaml) that this is the chiii-acter of the colony 
lately. It is a pity that in avoiding the class- 
legislation of England, New Zealand should have 
adopted another form of the same thing. How 
difKculb it is to be truly democratic! Democracy 
is Government by the people for the people, and 
the capitalist and tlie brain-worker are as much 
part of tlie Demos as is (he 'orny 'anded, and 
legislation that hampers the capitalist in favour 
of the working man i'^ as contradictory to tlie 
true principles of democracy as legislation for the 
capitalist which disregards the interest of the 
working man. 
CRVr.ON TEA 
is advertised in every sti'eet and on every train 
and omnil)!!Siii Auckland and was well to tlie fore 
in the recent Auckland Exhibition. 
CABBAGE BANANA. 
A NEW VEGETABLE FOR TABLE USE. 
Oua attention has been drawn to the fol- 
lowiiisf extract in the Florida AgrUndiurist, 
referring to the " Abyssinian Banana" which 
has been introduced into Ceylon and is 
growing luxnriautlv ;it Hakgala Gardens. 
The Siiperinteudeut of the National Botanic 
Gardens, United States, is responsible for 
stating that the ornamental value of this 
plant may be eclipsed by its usefulness as 
an esculent, and so he would call it the 
"cabbage banana." We are next treated to 
the following interesting extract from James 
Bruce's "Travels in Abyssinia to discover the 
source of the Nile," published in Edinburgh so 
far back as 1890. Mr. Bruce was a much- 
traduced writer ; but all his statements have 
since been verified. He wrote : — 
"It is said that the Galla, when transplanted 
into Abyssinia, brought for their particular use the 
coffee tree and the eusete (banana), the use of 
neither of which was before known. However, 
tlie general opinion is that both are naturally 
produced in Abyssinia, provided there is heat and 
moisture. It grows and comes to great perfection 
in Gondar, but it most abounds in that part of 
Maitscha and Goutto west of the Nile, where 
there are large plantations of it, and is there, 
almost exclusive of anything else, the food of 
the Galla inhabiting that province ; Maitsha is 
nearly upon a dead level, and the rains have no 
slope to get off easily, but stagnate and prevent 
the sowing of grain. Vegetable food would, there- 
fore, be very scarce in Maitsha were it not for 
this plant. As soon as the .stalk of the ensete 
appears perfect and full of leaves, the body of 
the plant turns hard and fibrous, and is no longer 
eatable ; before it is the best of all vegetables. 
When you make use of the ensete for eating you 
cut it immediately above the small detached roots, 
and perhaps a foot or two higher, as the plant 
